Nightprowlers Book 1: Neverender
by INFJwriter
Summary: Five junior agents in a sinister organization are sent on a new mission. Four have no memory of their past. One remembers it all. Takes place twenty years after the ghost season and does not take into account any seasons after it. Rated T just in case. The three parts of this are named after songs by The Fold; I do not own the names of the songs! Updates every Saturday!
1. Introduction

**(A/N): Hello everyone! I'm INFJwriter, and this is my first fanfic! I've been working on this project for a long time, and I am so excited to finally publish it! Just so you know, the ninja will not show up until chapter 3.**

 **Without further ado, enjoy!**

Introduction

Six men and six women waited at the conference table in the Black Dragon Agency's underground bunker, their eyes darting from one face to the next. There was an ominous feeling in the room that felt like a looming shadow over their heads. The decision they would make today would either lead to their organization's ultimate triumph - or its devastating demise.

Suddenly, the thick, soundproof door swung open, and everyone stood up as a towering man in a black suit entered, followed by another, much runtier assistant. No one dared to meet his piercing gaze as he strode toward the table. After both men had sat down, the others followed suit. There was a brief silence until at last the tall man spoke.

"I see we're all here. Good. I won't have to punish anyone." He paused. "The meeting is now in order. Agent Carson, your report."

His assistant stood up and cleared his throat. The papers in his hand shook slightly. "Thank you, Vladomir. We are here today on Tuesday, June twenty-first to discuss the controversial issue of sending Team Nightprowler into the field to carry out Phase One of Operation: XT3RM1N8. As you all know, Nightprowler is a nocturnal team in the Agency, doing only night missions, and is composed of our top five junior agents: Mark, the navigator, Gretta, the weapons expert, Ted, the technology expert and mechanic, Lex, the physicist and mathematician, and Drew, the combat specialist. Our main concern is, while they are carrying out the mission, they may come across something that will undo all progress we've made with them. Disscussion is now open." With that, Carson sat down.

"It's too risky," a woman with a thick accent said sharply. "If something happens to them, we won't be able send reinforcements."

"Agent Overpecker is right," added the woman next to her. "We have to send a different team."

"But there's a huge problem with that," a man with thick glasses pointed out, shaking his head. "Drew, the combat specialist, knows all about the targets. He is the key to our success with this mission."

The man across from him snorted. "You mean, he's the key to our _failure_ with this mission. Dawson, do you know _anything_ about the kid? I was one of his teachers at the Black Dragon Training Academy. Outstanding fighter, but a _terrible_ agent. He was a total rebel, always playing pranks on us faculty. He turned the school into a minefield of tricks and pranks. You couldn't walk down the hallway without setting off a firework or stepping on a hidden button that triggered a stink bomb. If you think sending _him_ on such an important mission is a good idea, we're as good as goners. I say we should leave Drew out."

"What choice do we have, Gildman?" the man in glasses shot back. "Can you think of a team that could do better? Nightprowler is our only all-minor team! It's the only team that could possibly work in the context of the mission! Yes, the stakes are high! But do we have any other option? No!" There were some nods as Dawson finished, but some glares as well.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Vladomir growled, recognizing the rising tension around the table. "Let's keep this civilized. We don't need last month's _accident_ to happen again."

No one spoke for a while. Carson stood up again. "I assume we have all come to a conclusion? I see some nodding. Good. Everyone, write your vote on the slips of paper in front of you, fold them up, and cast them into the middle of the table." There was silence as the twelve agents did as Carson had told them. When all the slips of paper were gathered in the center of the table, Carson collected them and handed them to Vladomir to count. After a minute that seemed like an hour, Vladomir stood up.

"With a majority vote of seven to five, Team Nightprowler _will_ carry out Phase One of Operation: XT3RM1N8. The meeting is in conclusion." With the decision having been announced, everyone except for Vladomir and Carson stood up and filed out of the bunker, some shooting glares at each other. Once the door had been safely closed behind them, Carson turned to Vladomir with a snarl.

"This will end badly," he growled. "We are sending the most dangerous team in the agency into the most dangerous place for _any_ team to be, let alone Nightprowler! Gretta has a better aim than anyone in the agency! Ted has enough computer knowledge to hack into the most secure networks and systems in the world! Mark is loyal to us, yes, but but if his loyalties change, he's got the will and strategic knowledge to take us down in one move. Drew-"

"Drew knows what will happen if he tries anything," Vladomir interrupted, staring at the table putatively. "We have him under control."

"But what about Lex?" Carson fought back. "I know he seems like a dud on the outside, but I have heard rumors saying that he may have the most brilliant mathematical mind in history! Vladomir, think! If sending Team Nightprowler to carry out phase one won't be our downfall, he will be! If he figures out-"

"Lex has Selective Mutism. Even if he figures out the entirety of Operation: XT3RM1N8, he won't be telling anyone, except maybe Drew. He's the only person he'll talk to."

"But if Drew tells-"

"Again, Drew has been warned about what will happen if he says anything to anyone." Vladomir's volume was beginning to rise."I am finished with this conversation, Carson. Everything is under control. _You are_ _dismissed."_ Carson opened his mouth as if about to retort, then closed it, swallowed, and exited, closing the door behind him.

Vladomir sat in the now silent room, satisfied with the decision. All appeared to be going smoothly so far. Of course, there was still a long way to go before Operation: XT3RM1N8 was completed. But he was quite confident now that everything would work out.

How very wrong he was.


	2. Chapter 1: The Heist

**I felt like you all were a little cheated when I gave you the extremely short introduction, so I decided I'd break my Sunday update rule once and give you something a little bit longer. I am, like, four chapters ahead anyway. Enjoy! : )**

* * *

Chapter 1

The Heist

The air became cold and unwelcoming as the sun slipped below the horizon. The wind picked up, turning the peaceful grassy field into a wild sea. Dark clouds began to blanket the night sky. A rumble, then a flash, and the storm began. Rain poured down from the sky, and lightning lit up the night, revealing a small boy in a black raincoat fighting his way through the fury. He was clutching a briefcase to his chest like his life depended on it.

The sky growled and lit up again, and the dark shape of a tower appeared. The figure sped up. As he drew closer, the structure became clearer. He stopped in front of it to admire the fantastic building. It had a futuristic look to it, with a long, thin neck leading up to a huge, disk-shaped top floor. A spire on the roof stretched to the heavens. This was the power station. Here, they converted lightning to electrical power for the whole world. Shame, the figure thought. Such a spectacular system deserved better than to be hacked.

He ran toward the door and pushed it open. When he had closed it behind him, he surveyed his surroundings. He was in a small, circular room, dimly lit, but just light enough that he could make out an elevator and plenty of cardboard boxes. He knew there would be guards at the top of the tower, so he'd have to take care of that before he did anything else. He set down his briefcase and began to hunt around the space for any spare walkie-talkies. When he found one (in a cardboard box labeled "tape recorders", for some reason), he pressed the button and said, "Emergency! There's an out-of-control fire in the base of the tower. Evacuate using alternate exit!" Then he waited, holding his breath. _That had better work,_ he thought nervously.

Then a voice began to crackle through on the other end. _"Copy that. I'll open up the alternate exit."_

"I'm already out. Radio me as soon as the tower is clear."

 _"Roger that. See you outside."_ There was a crackle, then silence. The traveler took off the coat. He wasn't that tall, only about four feet, and he was quite lean. He wore all black from head to toe. He rustled his reddish-brown hair dry (it was soaked from the rain) and wiped his thick, rectangular glasses on his shirt. His name was Ted, but his friend Drew called him Tech because he was a computer genius. He was twelve, but he could have taught a college Computer Science class if he wanted to. Unfortunately, Ted and his team couldn't have normal roles in society, because Ted, his team, and the people they worked for were wanted by just about every law enforcement establishment in the known world.

Ted sat down with the walkie-talkie and absentmindedly began to turn it over in his hands. He ran over phase one of the mission in his head. He would hack the powerstation's system and gain control of the security network. Then he would contact the rest of his group, and the real heist would begin.

Suddenly the walkie-talkie crackled on again. _"The premises is cleared, repeat, the premises is cleared."_

"Good work," Ted answered. He waited to see if his "friend" would say anything else, but nothing more came. With that, Ted turned the device over, removed the batteries, and tossed it into a random box. Now he could move forward. He picked up the briefcase, pressed the up button for the elevator, and stepped in. After what seemed like eternity, the doors opened, and he was in the control room.

Ted looked around. He admired the beauty of the room. It was completely round, filled with devices and technology that were just begging to be played with. In the center was a huge, cylindrical glass case that enclosed a glowing mass of blue electricity. It was obvious his plan had worked beautifully, because the room showed all signs of immediate evacuation. Computers were still running, screens were still on, security cameras were still rolling. He plopped himself down in the chair at the main computer and opened his briefcase. Inside was a laptop, a number of computer cords, a flashdrive, a headset, and a candy bar. He took out the cords and used them to plug the laptop into the computer. Then he drew a stool toward him and put his laptop on it. Taking the flashdrive, he inserted it into the main computer.

Immediately, the giant screen (up until now showing the status of the power station's systems) turned blue. Words began appearing, line by line, on the screen.

Error. Press any key to restart.

Restart failed. Scanning for source of problem.

No source found. Searching for cleaner.

Cleaner found. Shut down for cleaning?

Ted smiled. That was no cleaner the computer had found. It was the hack that had been downloaded onto the computer from the flashdrive. He pressed the enter key on the giant keyboard. The screen went black, then came on again. It showed a red screen with a symbol in the center: a black dragon curled into a spiral, holding in its claws a sword and a scepter. It was the symbol of the Black Dragons, the criminal agency Ted and his team worked for. The dragon sign symbolized their mission perfectly: to establish their rule over Ninjago - using whatever means necessary to do so. Ted pressed a few keys, and a map of Ninjago City appeared. He put on the headset, took a bite of delicious chocolate and nuts from the candy bar, and spoke into the mic. "Hacker to Rebel, do you copy?"

A teen boy's voice answered. _"Yeah, I copy. Jeez, Tech, what took you so long? Do you have any idea how awful it is hiding in this garbage can for two hours?!"_ Ted rolled his eyes, both annoyed and amused.

"I'm sure it was unpleasant," he said. Drew was a good friend, but he was very complicated: you could always count on the fifteen-year-old to laugh at a joke, and he was for the most part nice and sociable to his friends, but he hated the agency, and had never explained why. Drew wasn't quick to trust others, and always seemed to know something that he wouldn't tell his friends. Personal matters were never mentioned in conversation with him. "Stand by while I check in with the others."

 _"Fine, but I'm not standing by in this thing."_ There was a crashing sound.

"Dude, don't wake up the city," Ted joked, snorting with his mouth still full of chocolate.

 _"Shut up,"_ Drew shot back, but Ted could hear him chuckling too. _"Hey, are you eating something?"_

"Maybe. Seriously, though, make sure you haven't drawn any attention. Hacker out." He pressed a few keys, and spoke into the mic again. "Hacker to Weapons, do you copy?"

This time, a sassy girl's voice answered. _"I copy. You can't see anything in this fog! It's awful!"_

"Can you move to your next position?"

 _"I can't see two feet in front of me! What do you think?"_

Ted sighed. Gretta was his least favorite on the team. The sixteen-year-old girl was absolutely nasty. He had to admit, though, she was good with any weapon you handed her. She had an eagle's eye and was a perfect shot, giving her a huge advantage over enemies. Anybody who knew her knew she was not a person you wanted to mess with.

"Use your atmospheric deconcentrating goggles. Those will help."

 _"They'd better."_

"They will," Ted told her firmly. "And remember, you can't boss me around this time. I'm the one who's in charge of this mission. Weapons aren't going to help us break into Borg Tower. It's not how that place works."

 _"I know that, dweeb. I read the mission descript-"_

Ted cut her off by switching lines again. This time, he called out two codenames. "Hacker to Drill and Numbers, do you copy?"

 _"Sure do. Dang, it's foggy out here!"_ It was Mark answering. Ted smirked. He could tell from the way that his friend had pronounced "dang" (slowly with strange intonation) that Mark was about to say something else, probably some curse word or something.

"Guess who already told me that?"

 _"Gretta."_

"Bingo."

 _"That girl has issues. Though you have to admit, she isn't afraid to take drastic measures to get a job done."_ Mark was a strong advocate of duty and following all orders, no matter what the circumstances. It made him a good agent, but sometimes it would go too far; he'd end up following a cause blindly.

"Do you have Lex with you?"

 _"Yeah, and miraculously, he hasn't started drawing on a wall yet,"_ Mark answered. Lex was a distant boy of eight, always deep in thought or writing mathematical equations on the walls. But the strangest behavior that he exhibited was his silence. Even after seven years of knowing the odd little boy, Ted had never heard Lex say a single word.

"Okay, switching to multi-line mode," Ted announced. He pressed a button, and the laptop showed a map of the capital city, downloaded from the computer. Four dots flashing on the screen each represented a member of Ted's team. Ted took a bite out of the candy bar. "All agents may proceed."

* * *

 _I hate this job._

Drew slipped through the shadows, brooding silently. He hated his job, he hated his bosses, he hated the agency, and he hated its goal. Conquering the world was not a cause he wanted to work for. He'd run away if he could. The problem was that if they caught you sneaking away, you'd be shot. The Black Dragons were not forgiving.

 _"Hacking the city's security grid,"_ came Ted's voice through Drew's earpiece. _"Hold on, Drew, I think something's coming your way!"_

"Can you tell what it is?" Drew whispered. Had his trash can woken something up?

 _"It looks like a bird of some sort. It doesn't look dangerous. Never mind, no need to worry."_

But Drew leapt into an ally anyway. He quickly put on his nightgoggles, and searched the skies. At first, he saw nothing. Then-

 _There._

Perched on a window ledge was a silver falcon, its piercing gaze focused right on him. He knew this bird. And like thunder always comes after lightning, something else always came after the appearance of this falcon. Drew pressed a button on his earpiece. "Drew here. You'll all need to carry on the mission without me. Enemies are not far away from me."

 _"Enemies?!"_ Ted blurted. _"We just started the mission!"_

"Trust me. These guys are that quick," Drew told his friend. "Just get on with the mission! These people are trying to prevent our success. I'm going to stall them." It wasn't the mission he was worried about. It was the safety of his friends.

 _"...Okay. If you say so. Alright, everyone, change of plans. We've got unfriendlies on the south side..."_ Drew turned the volume down on his earpiece so he could focus better. The falcon had left. That meant they were close. Very close. He waited in the shadows, ready for them to spring out of nowhere.

There was a shout, and they were there. Seven of them, all wearing colored gis and bearing weapons that could easily knock Drew out. Fortunately, he had learned all their moves in his training. He pulled his mask up over his nose and mouth, so as to keep himself more unrecognizable. "Wow, guys," he snarked as the ninjas surrounded him. "Your outfits are so colorful. I can't help but wonder why your enemies never see you in those bright costumes of yours. You say you travel in shadows, but how _do_ you stay hidden?" The insult did the trick. All seven ninjas ran at him at once. He waited until they were almost upon him, then leapt up and caught the lowest rung of a ladder on the side of a brick building. He watched as they rammed into eachother. Clearly, these were just students that were probably sent on a late night mission. They'd never fall for that trick if they'd been fully trained. Drew shook his head; this would be easier than he'd thought.

* * *

Mark groaned. Every mission, Drew would end up doing something really stupid, like rushing through a hallway and realizing too late that it was full of security lasers, or opening a door out of curiosity and finding a room full of police, or even _trying to take on a bunch of enemies on his own!_

"Ted, are you sure we shouldn't call him back and tell him he needs to _get back here RIGHT NOW?"_

 _"Don't worry. Drew's told me before that he knows the ninja like the back of his hand. He's never told me how, but I trust him,"_ Ted assured him.

Mark wasn't so sure. He'd always suspected that there was something up with Drew. Like he knew something that he wasn't telling them. Sometimes, it even seemed like he thought he'd said too much in a conversation. One instance was on one of their missions a while ago. Mark had used a sleeping smoke bomb, a measure Drew called "unfair". That was when Drew had said something very strange.

 _"You didn't always fight like that. I remember-"_ Then Drew had stopped.

 _"You remember what?"_ Mark had shot back.

 _"...Never mind."_

Mark never found out what that meant. After Mark told his boss about it, Drew wasn't seen for three days. When his team finally saw him limping down a hallway back at the Black Dragon Headquarters, they ran over, asking him where he'd been. Drew didn't answer anyone. He just rubbed his back as if it were in pain and stared at Mark with a raging fire in his amber eyes. Mark would never forget that look.

 _"Alright, Mark, you and Lex can go ahead and move forward."_

"Roger that," Mark answered, and he tapped Lex on the shoulder. "Time to move," he whispered. Lex stood up, and followed Mark as he led the way down the street. Suddenly, the dark shape of Borg Tower loomed into view. One hundred floors high, the place was an architectural giant. Mark pressed the button on his ear piece. "I have the tower in my sights. Now what? I see at least forty guards."

 _"Do you see Gretta on the other side of the street?"_

Mark squinted into the fog. "No, I - wait, I think I do!" A figure was waving in the darkness. Mark waved back.

 _"Good. Gretta, use the fog as concealment. Blast something down the street."_

Gretta's voice crackled through the earpiece. _"Ooh, goody! What should I aim at?"_

 _"Anything."_

There was a deafening blast on the next block, and a shop exploded. Immediately, almost all the guards ran towards the commotion. Only two remained. Mark saw Gretta racing across the street towards them. The fog was so thick that the guards didn't know what had hit them; the agent had knocked them out before they could even see her. Mark turned to Lex. "Your turn," he said. Lex rushed over to the keypad that would unlock the doors, and with only a quick glance at it, typed in the code, and they were in.

The first thing they saw were the security nindroids.

Every one of them turned its beady red eye to the intruders. They looked ready to fire on them with their laser blasts any second. Mark let out a dirty word. "We'll never get out of this mess!" he moaned. "Ted, how did you not see this on the security cameras?!"

 _"I forgot that this was one of the things Drew was supposed to take care of!"_

"Well, now that he can't take care of it, who's going to-"

"What makes you think I can't take care of it?" Mark, Gretta and Lex all looked up to see Drew standing in a window frame, holding a remote control. A press of a button, and all the nindroids fell to the ground. He hopped down. "An invisible radiation field trap. Harmless to humans, but it fries the circuits of robots."

"Wait, how did you get here?" Mark asked suspiciously. "I thought you were-"

"Turns out the guys I faced were a bunch of ametures," Drew answered with a shrug. "C'mon, let's get this over with."

Just then they could hear shouts outside. "Sounds like our friends have come back to play," Gretta remarked sarcastically. The team raced to the stairs, and began the climb to the ninety-sixth floor.

* * *

Ted was frantic. All three lines had gone dead. There was nothing but static. The last time he'd heard from his teammates, three had been facing a hundred nindroids, and one had been fighting seven ninja alone.

"Can anyone hear me?!" he shouted into his microphone. _Please don't let them be dead,_ he prayed. He had no idea what had happened. One minute, he'd been on the giant computer, watching his team through the security cameras in Borg Tower, the next, he was staring at a screen full of static. He'd checked the communication lines. Dead too.

Ted was miles away in a power station in the middle of a stormy field. His friends could be dead, and there was nothing he could do about it.

* * *

"I'm not getting anything."

Gretta only heard static in her ear. She'd been trying to contact Ted, but he hadn't answered. Mark and Drew had had no greater success. And Lex was once again being unhelpful and drawing on the walls. This was so frustrating, she wanted to shoot something.

"Let's not get carried away by worrying about this." Gretta could tell Mark was trying to keep his voice level. "We have to keep moving. Gretta, you've got the best memory. Do you remember what we need to do next?"

Gretta replied in a mocking voice. "Sure. We just need to hack into the computer. Of course, you can't ask me how to do it since _I'm not the computer geek!"_

"But you are a mechanic! You know how stuff works!" Drew suddenly blurted. Immediately he looked like he'd thought he'd said something he shouldn't have. Gretta raised an eyebrow.

"Since when have I been a mechanic?" she asked, thoroughly puzzled. She was a weapons expert, and always had been. "If you want someone who knows how stuff works, ask Mr. Physics over there." She jerked her head in Lex's direction.

Drew crossed his arms and scowled at her. "He won't answer any questions."

Gretta's smirk faded. "It was a joke, Red Head."

"Not a funny one." Drew shot back. He always defended Lex. For some reason, he seemed to think he was responsible for the little weirdo.

"Guys, _stop,"_ Mark demanded. "We don't have much time. We need to-" Suddenly there was a crackling from the earpieces.

 _"-hear me?! I repeat, CAN YOU HEAR ME?!"_

"Ted!" all three shouted at once.

 _"PRAISE THE LORD! I've been trying to reach you; what happened?!"_

"Drew here used some zapping thing to take out the nindroids, and in the process it also took out all the other devices around it, including the earpieces," Gretta stated, glaring at the little rebel. Drew made a face at her.

 _"Wait, how did Drew get from- oh, never mind that question, how did you guys get the line back on?"_

"Uh, good question. How did we get it back on?"

Suddenly there was a clang behind them, and they turned around to see Lex closing the little door to an electric box. They stared as he simply walked back over to the wall and started scribbling on it again.

"Oookaaay," Gretta said slowly.

 _"What?"_ Ted asked, probably thinking they were talking to him.

"...Nothing," Drew stated after a moment. "Just tell us what's next. We're already on floor 96."

 _"Good. Find the main computer."_

The main computer wasn't hard to find. It was huge, about the size of a billboard. "Now what?" Gretta asked.

 _"Now open up the confidential files. I can do the rest."_ Mark found the folder labeled TOP SECRET and clicked on it. Only a second had passed before the screen flashed red and in all caps read SECURITY BREACH. Alarms wailed throughout the building.

Mark swore. "Ted, what did I do?!" he demanded.

 _"You didn't do that; I did,"_ Ted explained calmly. _"When you opened the file, it became vulnerable. I hacked it, and that's what made the alarm go off. Mission accomplished. What are you waiting for? Get out of there!"_

"FREEZE!"

Mark, Gretta, Lex, and Drew all turned around to see the guards from outside pointing guns at them. "How'd they catch up so quickly?" Drew yelped.

"I can't believe the break-in was caused by a bunch of kids!" one of them scoffed to his friends. "Where are your parents? You're in a lot of trouble!"

"Not if we can help it!" Mark shouted. "Gretta, get us out of here!"

Gretta smiled. "Finally, I get to relieve this _killer_ itch in my trigger finger!" She swung her tiny, tazer-sized gun over her shoulder.

Gretta's Black Dragon uniform served two purposes. It was not only fashionable, but it also had a built in mechanism that would quickly change the parts and mechanics of her gun, making it possible for her to carry only one weapon and efficiently change its function in seconds. The gun clicked into place inside the construction chamber on her back, and five seconds later it emitted a beep that indicated it was ready. Gretta pulled the weapon out, now five times as long, loaded with toxic liquid ammunition, sporting flashing lights and three barrels, the insides of which began to glow hot pink. She pointed it at the guards. They all backed away. She was about to pull the trigger when Drew grabbed her arm. He had a burning glare in his eyes.

"Not necessary. Just get us out," he said warningly. Gretta made an ugly face at him, but still changed her target from the guards to the wall on the left. The gun hummed louder and louder until finally...

 _BLAM!_

Broken glass and computer parts flew through the air, leaving the guards ducking for cover. The blast from the gun had blown a massive hole in the glass wall, melting it with its corrosive chemical solution. The team ran towards their escape route, and took out their grappling guns. They fired them at the roof of the tower, and when it caught the ledge, they jumped out. When they reached the concrete, Drew pressed the button on his earpiece. "Alright, Ted," he said. "Tell headquarters that our stupid mission is accomplished."

* * *

 **A/N: Hey everyone! Thank you to the people who gave me such awesome feedback! Keep it coming! If you're wondering what the heck is up with Drew, just wait. It gets more and more suspicious as the story goes on. If you're** _ **dying**_ **to know, just look up The Fold's song, "Neverender," which Part 1 is named after. It describes Drew** _ **perfectly.**_ **Just don't spoil it for everyone else if you figure it out! There's also a** _ **teensy tiny**_ **hint about his past woven into this chapter. Again, if you find it, please do not spoil it for others!**

 **Now for some Q/A:**

 **Q: Will the Ninja be in this?**

 **A: Yes, but you won't see them until chapter 3. I thought it might be cool if I didn't mention them at first, then all of a sudden the agents are** _ **there**_ **, among the characters we all know and love. It also gives you time to see the agents as our protagonists and get to know them before they come in contact with the characters we've always thought of as the good guys. In this story, there is an emphasis on the fact that protagonists are not always good, antagonists are not always bad, and there will always be a gray area between the two. The** _ **protagonist**_ **is defined as the** _ **leading character**_ **, and the** _ **antagonist**_ **is the person who** _ **opposes the protagonist.**_ **This way, I can create a question in the reader:** _ **who is the good guy?**_

 **Q: Is it me, or is Nightprowler gonna epically fail? Are the AU ninja going to take their place?**

 **A: Not quite sure what you mean by this, but the answer to "are they going to fail" will be pretty infuriating to you all. My answer is: yes** _ **and**_ **no. I can say no more. :) As for the "AU Ninja", I honestly have no idea what that means, apart from the abbreviation "AU". This review was made in response to the Introduction, so I think you are referring to the fact that there are five agents and five original ninja, but remember from the description that this takes place** _ **twenty years**_ **after the ghost season. The original ninja are all grown ups. Plus the Black Dragon Agency is a sinister secret organization intent on creating as much fear in Ninjago as possible so I don't know why you would think that the Ninja are going to be replacing them. Unless I'm interpreting the question wrong...?**

 **That's all for now! See you Sunday! : )**


	3. Chapter 2: New Mission

**A/N: Hey everyone!**

 **I know there hasn't been much that tells you that we're actually in the same world as the ninja, but trust me, we're touching on that here! Also, we'll get to know some of the characters a little bit better, and Team Nightprowler will finally start on the mission mentioned in the Introduction!**

* * *

Chapter 2

New Mission

Black Dragon Island was tiny, only a few miles across, and the surrounding islands were even smaller. It was very tropical; the entire island was a jungle. The area was shrouded in mist, and the seas were always choppy. If a ship managed to pass through safely, the crew would immediately be taken to the island's prison, and the ship would be destroyed. To avoid mistaking an agent's craft for an enemy ship, agents traveled there only by special Black Dragon submarines, specially crafted to look like the heads of dragons. As the Team Nightprowler's pod broke the surface, Drew's brow furrowed.

He hated the island as much as he hated the people who lived there - and what they worked for. The headquarters of the Black Dragons was here, along with a prison for captives, a laboratory for the making and testing of various machines and weapons, and the Training Academy. The people who ran the island were escaped prisoners, mentally ill criminals, former military officers, mad scientists; anyone the Black Dragons could find that was willing to do whatever it takes to get what they want.

 _And,_ Drew thought, scowling, _a bunch of innocent kids..._

When the submarine reached the dock, Mark opened the hatch, and the team climbed out, Drew holding the stupid flashdrive with the stolen files on it. A guard was waiting for them on the dock. Drew narrowed his eyes at the large, muscular man in the all-black uniform.

"You've been ordered to go to the Boss's office," he growled, pointing at Drew. "The rest of you: drop off the package at the Technology Desk and report to the Missions Assignment Department." Then he marched off toward the South side of the harbor.

Mark whirled on Drew, looking furious. "What did you do _this_ time?" he demanded through his teeth.

"Nothing," Drew replied, expressionless.

"So the Boss just wants you for no apparent reason?"

"It wouldn't be the first time."

Drew was always being called into his boss's office, sometimes because he pulled another smart-alecky stunt of some kind, and sometimes just because his boss wanted someone to yell at. Mark huffed. "Well, get going," he barked, and Drew tossed the flashdrive to Ted and strode toward the road that led to the Black Dragon Headquarters.

* * *

Vladomir Chovin enjoyed being feared. It made him feel powerful, and it was fitting that he was the leader of the Black Dragons, for, in his opinion, no one could be better at it than he. However, there was one person who didn't fear him. That person was a certain fifteen-year-old boy named Drew.

Vladomir was sitting in the ornate chair at his desk in his office, drumming his fingers, waiting for the moment when the little rebel would walk through the mahogany double doors. He stared up at the ceiling of the circular room, admiring the detailed crest of the Black Dragons that had been expertly painted above. It was the perfect symbol for their organization: powerful, and deadly.

Just then, the doors swung open, and Vladomir's attention snapped in an instant from what was above him to what was in front of him. His fists clenched as the boy he hated so much entered.

" _Vladomir._ You called for me?" Drew's words dripped with disrespect.

"You know you're not supposed to call me that, young man. I am _'sir'_ to you." Vladomir growled.

"Okay then, _sir._ "

"Watch your tongue-"

"Why?" Drew shot. "Threats on _my_ life don't scare me, and you know that."

"You hide your fear well, young man. "

"I'll take that as a compliment!"

Vladomir shot murderous glares at the boy. He could have killed Drew if he wasn't such an important asset to his team.

"So what do you want to yell at me for this time?" Drew asked casually as he sat down in the chair on the opposite side of the desk in that despicable bored fashion of his. Vladomir struggled to keep his temper in check.

"I want to give you a warning," he answered, standing up. He began to circle the round office. "Your next mission will require you to get rid of your carelessness and apathy. You are a Black Dragon. You need to start acting like one."

Drew snorted. "I've heard that before."

Vladomir tried to ignore him. "The Committee of Generals considered leaving you out of this mission, but it seems you are the only one who knows enough about the location to make this mission a success."

Drew turned in his seat toward Vladomir and raised one eyebrow. "Now _that's_ new," he remarked. He'd never been told that he was actually _useful_. He narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean, I'm the only one who knows enough? Where are you sending us? Why would you leave me out?"

Vladomir finished his circle around the room and sat down again. "Because," he said quietly, leaning over the desk, "where you are going next will tempt you to break your silence."

The boy froze. It was clear from his expression that Drew knew half of what Vladomir was talking about, but was unsure about the rest, and Vladomir thought he saw a flicker of something in those amber eyes... was it... _fear?_ "Where are you sending us?" the boy asked in a voice that almost shook. Vladomir smiled triumphantly at his success at finally getting a reaction out of this seemingly fearless child.

"You'll find out soon enough," he replied vaguely, moving over to the window and looking out at the sea. "Just remember what I told you seven years ago about what you can and can't say. You may leave." A few seconds later, he heard the doors swing shut behind him.

Vladomir hated Drew. He despised everything about the little rebel. He often told people that the thing that irked him the most about the boy was that he wasn't afraid of his boss. But that was a lie. The thing Vladomir truly loathed the most about him was not the fact that _Drew_ wasn't afraid of _him_ ; it was the fact that _he_ was afraid of _Drew_.

* * *

"That was quicker than usual."

Ted's eyebrows were raised high as Drew approached the rest of his team. "We just left the Mission Center _two minutes_ ago. What did he want?"

"Don't worry about it," Drew muttered. "Where are we going next?"

"Well, we're not quite sure," Ted admitted slowly. "We've never seen it before. Can you recognize it?" He held out a picture for Drew to look at. One glance at the building depicted in it was enough. Drew snatched the page from his friend's hand, and as he stared at it, his expression changed from recognition to shock, and after that, to deep concern. He closed his eyes and sighed.

Now he knew what Vladomir had been talking about.

The building in the picture was a monastery, settled in a cozy little forested valley next to a waterfall that cascaded off of a cliff. He remembered this building. He remembered the people who lived there. He remembered what they had taught him. And he remembered the nightmare that had happened there seven years ago.

"Drew, are you okay?" Ted asked. "You look pale."

Drew just stared at the picture. Then he sighed. "I know exactly where we're going," he said at last.

* * *

Mark had always hated the city. Too much noise, too much gasoline smell, too many neon signs, and _way_ too many people. He hated crowds. When he was surrounded by lots of people, he felt like the closeness would suffocate him. He liked sticking to a small group, like his team, though sometimes he thought that even the five of them was too many.

Thankfully though, it was one in the morning in the seaside city their submarine had taken them to, so no citizens were out. Even so, as he followed Drew through the dark alleyways, Mark kept his senses alert for any sign of unwanted passersby. He had unusually keen senses of hearing and smell, and had a knack for directions. That was why he always led the team on missions in areas that required good navigation skills, like forests and caves. He almost never got lost. That was one of the things that made him such an effective leader.

"Drew, do you have everything in the bag?" he whispered. "We don't want to get too far out of the city without something we need. Remember, once we get to our location, there's no going back until mission accomplished."

"Dude, I triple-checked everything!" Drew answered irritably. "We have all our gear, disguises, technology, and snacks."

"And instructions?"

 _"Yes!"_

Mark shook his head. Drew hated being pestered with constant progress checks. He preferred to work at his own pace, which didn't always work out for him as an agent. They worked on a limited amount of time, and Mark didn't have patience for slackers. He was so militaristic, with his strategic thought process and high expectations, that Drew had given him the nickname "Major Mark".

"It fits you even better than 'Ranger Mark' does," he had laughed at the time.

Mark knew his teammate meant no harm, but Drew needed to start taking things more seriously. He was fifteen now, too old for such childish behavior. _But,_ he reminded himself, _he's not entirely at fault._

All five members of their team were adopted at young ages. Mark himself remembered little of his family, only a few faces and some piano songs. But that was all he knew about his life before he became a Black Dragon agent. That was a bit strange, because he'd been told he was adopted and taken to the island at age two, and he remembered beginning training at age ten, but he remembered nothing of the years in between being a toddler and being a trainee. But Mark never questioned what he was told. He knew that questioning orders was the quickest way to a superior's bad side.

That mindset was what got him through his education so quickly, emerging as a well-respected young agent. Mark had been a great student at the training academy. His inborn sense of discipline fit the system perfectly, and he quickly moved up the ranks. After his graduation, there was no question of who the Committee of Generals would appoint to be the leader of Team Nightprowler. It seemed that he was _born_ to be an agent.

But the other four... _weren't._

They didn't have Mark's militaristic attitude. Sure, they went out of the academy as satisfactory agents, but they had problems. Taught by dangerous criminals, they hadn't learned some of the social skills that even Black Dragon agents needed.

Gretta, with her lack of patience and wild mood swings, developed the unpredictability and deadliness of a psycopath. It made her the perfect weapons expert, but _not_ the perfect teammate. She sometimes had "bouts of insanity", making her completely unreachable by anyone except for her doctors. Regular mind stablity checks were required to keep her from losing it at the worst of times.

Ted, a shy computer genius, had disliked to interact with his fellow students at the academy, and had tried to avoid them any way he could. He'd never showed up for fighting lessons, where he'd have to work with another student for practicing combat. As a result, he was a terrible fighter, and had to act as mission control for the team instead of being in the field where the action was. He also hacked computers for fun, which wasn't always a good thing.

Drew lacked respect for authority and never took any mission seriously, so he was not easily controlled; he always did his own thing. This got the team into trouble a lot, and drove his superiors nuts.

But perhaps the worst one was Lex. According to Drew, Lex was born in the Black Dragon Island's _prison._ After the mother died a few weeks later, Lex was dropped into Drew's hands, for reasons Drew (of course) had never specified. At the age of four, he became obsessed with numbers, and shut everything else out. He rarely connected with anyone anymore, except maybe Drew. At first people just thought he was shy. But when they had him tested, they found out that Lex had selective mutism, a type of mental disorder that took social anxiety to the extreme. He simply could not talk in public. Drew claimed Lex talked a little bit when it was just the two of them, but no one else had ever seen the strange little boy speak a single word.

Mark couldn't deny that he wasn't without his own flaws. He might be a little hard on his teammates, but that was part of being the leader. _Guess we're all mad here,_ he thought to himself.

As they reached the edge of the city, Drew broke into a run, and the other four followed. Mark wondered how Drew knew where they were going. After all, he'd never been anywhere the agency hadn't told him to go, had he?

"How do you know this place?" he asked his teammate. Drew seemed to ignore him. That was another frustrating thing about the kid. Sometimes he would answer you, and sometimes he'd ignore you.

Suddenly Drew skidded to a stop, panting slightly. "We'll never get there on foot," he said. "We'll have to get a ride."

"There are no rides around here, genius!" Mark hissed.

"Then we'll make one," Ted announced confidently.

The agents looked around. The outskirts of town were not too impressive: most of the houses were flats, and all were a bit shabby-looking. The paint was chipped and cracked, some of the roof shingles were missing, and a few windows were boarded up. The toys and playsets in the backyards were broken and rusty. The wire fences were bent and torn, and the lawns were overgrown, like they hadn't been mowed in years. There was erie silence throughout the neighborhood.

Ted let out a long, low whistle. "Snazzy place. Do you think anyone still lives here?"

"If they don't, they probably wouldn't mind if we borrowed a few of their things," Mark said, pointing to a rusty motorcycle. "It's not like they're using it right now. Ted, can you fix that thing?"

"Old Rusty here?" Ted asked incredulously, looking the old bike up and down with a repulsed expression. He sucked in air through his teeth. "I can try, but even if I get her going, she won't go very far." He walked over to the vehicle and crouched down, inspecting it. "But if I took her apart..." He stood back and scrutinized it, running his fingers through his hair. "I could use the parts that aren't rusted to the point of uselessness and combine them with other machine parts around here to make something completely new that has some potential." He looked at Mark, seeking approval of the plan.

Mark nodded. "Not a bad idea," he told his friend. In no time, the group was raiding the garages of the seemingly abandoned houses, bringing parts of machines to Ted as he quickly took apart the motorcycle until it was nothing but a frame. Only two hours after they had started, Ted suddenly emerged from behind the vehicle, beaming at the other four agents. "Done!" he announced, and they all stared in awe at the machine before them. It looked nothing like the pile of junk they had started with. It was still a motorcycle, but now it looked brand new. It was so smooth that it shone, and now it sported four seats, a sidecar, and a new paint job. There were also dozens of new switches and buttons on the controls. Mark had to hand it to Ted. The kid really knew how things worked.

Ted turned to Drew. "Okay, since you're the only one who knows where we're going, let me show you how this thing works." Ted was pointing out the invisibility switch when suddenly there were shouts from inside one of the houses.

"Someone's broken in!"

"Call the cops!"

"There! I see the thieves! They're outside!"

All five agents jumped onto the motorcycle. "Step on it, Drew!" Ted yelled. Drew didn't need to be told twice. The team was gone before the homeowners could get a good look at them.

"Drew, could you please tell us where we're going?" Gretta shouted over the noise of the motorcycle. "We've had enough of you ignoring our questions!"

Drew looked hesitant for a moment. "Well, if you really want to know," Drew hollered back, "we happen to be going straight into enemy territory."

The other four agents stared at him. "What do you mean, 'enemy territory?'" Ted asked, alarmed.

"I mean what I say. We're on our way to the monastery of the Ninja."

* * *

 **A/N: AAAAAAHHHHHH! I finally said the word "ninja"!**

 **Yes, we are now on track to getting this story up and running! Next chapter we're finally going to see some familiar faces! And Drew's going to get more and more suspicious as we go...**

 **Please review! I get sad when there's no feedback for my work!**


	4. Chapter 3: The Monastery

**A/N: Hello again!**

 **This time, we're FINALLY going to meet some old friends! I bet you all have been anticipating this! I have made a few changes to some of the canon characters, however. Just so you know, there are some PTSD references and we explore the extent to which Lex has selective mutism and what happens when someone crosses the line. I do not have either of these conditions, but my friend has PTSD so I know what an episode looks like and I have also done my research on both conditions. I hope that I do not offend anyone. Without further ado, enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter 3

The Monastery

Lex straightened his tie to be completely vertical. The team was dressed to look like runaways from an orphanage: the boys wore grey sweaters with white shirts underneath, black ties, and black pants, while Gretta wore the same top and tie with a black skirt and white leggings. Ted, Drew and Gretta were complaining about how sweaty they were in their uniforms, and Mark was hiding the motorcycle in the trees, yelling at them to shut up. They had reached the forested valley thirty minutes ago, and had stopped when the monastery was in sight to change and to organize themselves. Lex covered his ears from the racket of his teammates around him. _Clearly,_ they were anything _but_ organized. He crept away from the noise so as to think more clearly.

Lex found his way to the edge of the woods and settled himself down in the shade of a tree. He found a small stick and began to work out a quadratic equation that had just popped into his head. He was beginning to work out the imaginary number from the square root when suddenly...

"What are you doing?"

Lex looked up from his work to see a small girl at least two years younger than him sitting on the ground across from him. Her reddish-brown hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and she wore a light blue dress with little white stripes on it. She was holding a dandelion in her hand, and was looking down at Lex's equation with curious brown eyes. Without much more than a quick glance at her, Lex got back to work. "What are you doing?" she asked again. Lex narrowed his eyes at her, irritated by the repetition of the question. She stared innocently back. He tried to get back to his problem, but he realized he'd lost his place. When she asked a third time, Lex simply got up and walked further away from the trees into the field. To his annoyance, the girl followed.

"You look like you are in a school uniform. Did you run away from school? You should never run away from school. My daddy's friend says when he ran away from school, he missed out on finding out he could dance. My daddy's friend is a good dancer. Can you dance? What were you drawing in the dirt? I can draw a house. Can you draw a house?" The girl kept up this constant stream of words as she tailed him through the meadow. Lex covered his ears. He would never understand why anyone would think that they needed to talk so much.

Suddenly there was a shout from the direction of the monastery. "Katie! Katie, where are you?"

"Violet! Violet!" The little girl suddenly grabbed Lex by the wrist and began dragging him in the direction of the voice. "Violet! I found a boy who ran away from his school!" Lex tried to twist his arm free, but the little girl had an iron grip. He stumbled as she led him up the hill. When they reached the top, they were met with another girl. This one was much older; she looked about Drew's age. Her raven hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and her dark purple eyes bored straight through him. The part that Lex was really worried about was what she was wearing: a black and purple gi.

This girl was a ninja.

Lex ripped his arm free and began sprinting down the hill. He didn't get far before he was violently flipped upside-down in the air. It felt like he was being held by one leg, but there was no one there. Then he saw the older girl striding down the hill towards him. She had one arm high in the air, purple smoke shrouding her hand.

In hindsight, leaving the group was not one of Lex's more ingenious ideas.

* * *

"Alright everyone, good lesson! Class dismissed!"

Lloyd watched the students file out of the room, chatting about what cool moves they had just learned and boasting about how well they did on the kick. Slowly, the lesson room emptied, and Lloyd was alone. He let the mask of cheerfulness melt into the gloomy face that expressed the true feelings of his weary soul.

Lloyd didn't like being alone.

When he was alone, there was nothing to distract him from the pain of the past. It hurt to remember all the time he'd spent at Darkly's Boarding School for Bad Boys, how he'd had to be mean just to fit in, how he'd had to pretend that he was someone else for so long that he almost believed it himself.

After his uncle had taken him in, his life seemed to be taking a turn for the better, until he'd been taken hostage by the Serpentine. When Kai finally saved him, he'd only been home on the _Bounty_ for less than ten minutes when he was suddenly no longer a normal kid, he was a prophesied hero: the green ninja.

At first it had seemed cool to be someone foretold by destiny, but it quickly became clear that being the green ninja meant he wouldn't have a normal childhood. He couldn't play with other kids or read comic books or spend an entire weekend watching TV and playing video games. No, he had to train, train, train all day, every day, having no fun.

Not to mention the fact that being the green ninja _also_ meant that he had to _face_ and _defeat_ his _own father..._

It was even more painful to remember how he'd been _literally stripped_ of his childhood, turned into a teenager, and as a result had suddenly found himself _even more_ pressured with fulfilling the prophesy.

It had ultimately been easier for Lloyd to face his father in the end, because Garmadon had been possessed by the Overlord Dragon at the time; Lloyd didn't have to look at his father's pitiful face as he fought him, because his father was dormant inside the Overlord, no longer able to reach out to his son. Once it was all over, and his father was cleansed, their family was finally reunited, and Lloyd could be truly _happy_ for once in his life.

But, sadly, it didn't last, and only two years later, Lloyd found himself on the run from the Digital Overlord, this time with his now-benign father at his side. It was nice to spend some time with his dad, but the constant need to keep moving in order to evade capture always loomed over their heads.

And once he _did_ get caught, he was immediately thrown in an extraction chamber to be drained of his golden power in an excruciating deprivation process. At that point his golden power had become a vital factor in his survival and being deprived of it could potentially kill him. He had barely gotten out of that place alive. Lloyd had been claustrophobic ever since.

After the ninja had erased the Overlord from the system, he'd realized that he couldn't keep all of his power, and had to give it away to his friends, keeping just enough for himself to stay alive.

Of course, then _one_ of his friends _died..._ then suddenly came _back_...

When they had gone to Chen's Island to find Zane, Lloyd finally wasn't the only one who was a target, they were _all_ in danger. That wasn't exactly a good thing, but at least he wasn't alone.

Then he'd found out that his father was a _liar_ , sending to Lloyd's mother a stolen love letter that he didn't even have the right to _see,_ because _Wu_ had been the one who wrote it, not Garmadon. Suddenly Lloyd was the result of a _lie..._ what could be more painful than _that?_

Unbelievably, it _did_ get more painful. Only a few days later, his father-

 _Stop._

Lloyd tried to yank himself out of his flashbacks. He had to stop reliving his past before he got to the time Morro possessed him-

 _Stop._

Lloyd used to know how to break down his pain. He used to be very good at hiding it.

That all changed seven years ago.

 _Stop._

It was his most agonizing memory.

 _Stop!_

The night that would haunt him forever, that would never let him be happy again.

 _STOP._

The night Lloyd lost one of the two most important people in his life.

"Stop!"

Lloyd whirled around and stared at the door. _That_ hadn't come from his head; someone else had yelled in the hallway. He stood frozen, waiting to see if someone was coming in. Then he heard the voice again.

"Stop, Violet! You're hurting his arm!"

" _I'm_ hurting his arm? Katie, you looked like you were cutting off the circulation to his hand when you dragged him over to me!"

The door slid open, revealing two girls, one of them pulling a small boy by the arm that Lloyd didn't recognize. He couldn't have been more than seven, had a pale skin tone, and Lloyd couldn't tell what color his hair was because it was so dirty - it looked like it hadn't been washed in a month. He also seemed to be wearing a school uniform. A runaway?

"Violet," Lloyd began patiently. He knew harsh tones did not work on his daughter. It was one more way to get into a shouting match with her. "Let go of the poor boy. He looks terrified." She did as she was told. "Thank you.

"Now," Lloyd said, addressing the boy with a smile. "What might your name be?" The boy said nothing. Lloyd tried again. "My name is Lloyd, but the children here call me Sensei. Could you tell me yours?" Still the boy gave no response. "Hey. You can talk to me. I don't bite." He laid a hand on the small boy's shoulder.

That was the wrong thing to do.

In an instant, Lloyd was on his back, having been knocked over by a move that was too fast for him to react to. Violet helped him up, but the boy was already gone. Lloyd was shocked. He tried to think of what could have just happened. How could a scrawny little boy flip the _green ninja_ up and over his shoulder as easily as if he were tossing a coin?

"No one does that to _my_ dad!" Violet yelled. She pulled her hood over her head and raced out of the room. Lloyd stood up and followed, trying to ignore the pain in his back.

* * *

"I think I found something!"

Ted was using the computer he'd installed in his glasses to search the area's environment for any signs of what may have happened to Lex. He was quite proud of his glasses. He'd invented them himself when he was only nine. Sensors lined the frames, and the lenses were tiny screens that had five modes: 1) x/y graph mode, 2) x-ray mode, 3) environmental analysis mode, 4) zooming mode, and 5) normal mode. He had it on mode 3 now, and he tapped a tiny button near the hinge as he bent down for a closer look at a patch of dirt. The rest of the team crowded around Ted as he inspected the spot.

Gretta snorted. "Whoever drew _that_ piece of trash has never taken an art lesson."

"It's not a drawing. It's a quadratic equation," Ted corrected her, pointing at the square root in the numerator of the large formula.

Mark picked up a nearby stick. "The tip is covered with mud. It must be the stick that was used," he observed with his keen tracking skills.

Ted looked up at it. After a moment, he said, "I've analyzed the fingerprints. They're Lex's, alright."

"But where is he now?" Drew cried, kicking a stone into the bushes. Ted looked up at his friend with a little bit of pity. Drew always got upset whenever Lex was in trouble. They were as close as brothers.

"Calm down, Drew. We'll find him." Ted stood up and looked around the meadow. Suddenly, he saw something. The grass had been parted in a trail that snaked through the field and up and over a hill. "Actually, I think we may have already found him."

The team ran to the top of the hill and found themselves looking down at a tall monastery. It was just like the one they saw in the photo they were given at the island. A waterfall cascaded down the cliff into a small pond beside the building. A stone wall surrounded the place. Inside the front gates was a large outdoor training course. The four agents hurried down the cobblestone path to the open front gates. When they reached the grand doors, they pulled them open, shedding sunlight on the scene they had been afraid they would find. There was Lex, pinned to a column by two figures. One wore a purple gi, and the other wore black robes and held a bamboo staff in his hand. _That's not good,_ Ted thought, knowing exactly what would happen next. Drew snapped into protective sibling mode. _"You let go of my little brother!"_ he shouted, and in the blink of an eye he had crossed the distance between them. In two swift moves, both of Lex's captors were on the floor, gasping from the seemingly split-second attack. "You okay, buddy?" Drew asked Lex, concerned.

Suddenly, the foe in the purple gi jumped up and ran at Drew. "Look out, Drew! He's coming back!" Ted warned.

Drew turned and got in position for a fight, but the purple ninja skidded to a stop five feet from him and turned toward Ted. _"Excuse_ me?For your information, I'm a _she."_

"What? Wait, take off your hood," Drew told her. The ninja did as she was told. A pale face with purple eyes and freckles scowled down at him. Drew took a sharp intake of breath. _"You?!"_ he gasped.

She raised an eyebrow. "Have we met before?" she asked suspiciously.

"No," Drew said perhaps a little too quickly. There was an awkward silence that was suddenly broken by a loud crash. Gretta had apparently gotten bored, and in an effort to amuse herself, had knocked over a vase sitting on the window sill, shattering it on the ground. Everyone stared in shock.

"Somebody broke that," she said flatly.

The man with the bamboo staff stormed over. "What. In. The. Name. Of. _Ninjago-"_ he sputtered at her. Ted's heart sank lower and lower. The plan was already failing. He couldn't even imagine the Black Dragons' faces when the team would return home with no progress at all-

"Lloyd!"

Suddenly, six people burst into the room. All wore ninja gis - blue, red, silver, orange, black, dark red - and all looked ready for a fight, brandishing a wide range of weapons. The one wearing blue crossed his arms. "Gaah! Lloyd, I thought you said there was only one kid. I see five!"

Another ninja that was - _translucent,_ Ted observed with wonder- said, "One, five, whatever it may be, we have to get rid of them!"

"Wait!" Mark shouted, throwing his hands in the air. "I'm sure we can sort this out without a fight!" The agents waited, holding their breath while the ninja looked at eachother, apparently making a silent agreement. The one wearing orange stepped forward.

"Alright," she said. "Let's start with what you guys are here for in the first place."

* * *

Drew sat down on the bed in the room that the ninja had designated as his and reflected on the night's events.

The ninja had sat down with the team. Mark had told them the alibi: he, Gretta, Ted, Drew, and Lex were runaways from a school where they had been mistreated by their teachers and peers. They had heard of the ninja's monastery and decided to go there and ask if they could join. It was a sappy sob story, but Lloyd had taken pity on them and allowed them to stay.

So now Drew and the rest of his team were students at Lloyd Garmadon's Ninja Academy. They had been shown around the monastery and taken to their new rooms to get settled in. Drew had already unpacked and gotten his pajamas on. He couldn't get to sleep though, even though it was already dark outside. He walked over to the window and stuck his head out. It was breezy outside. Suddenly there was a flash in his vision, and he collapsed on the floor. He was younger, and he wasn't in the same room anymore. He felt alone and helpless as a night from seven years ago began to replay itself in his head.

 _I remember it well. It was a cold, late autumn night. The sky was covered with clouds so that not one star shone. Even the moonlight was blotted out. The wind howled eerily outside the monastery._

"Drew! Drew! Can you hear me?"

"No, Drew! You're not in danger! There's no one here who will hurt you!"

"Drew! You're in Sensei Lloyd's monastery! Drew! Wake up!"

Drew suddenly woke, gasping for breath. He was covered in sweat. He looked up. Mark, Gretta, Ted and Sensei Lloyd were all looking down at him with concern. They helped him sit up. "What happened?" the teacher asked.

"Dozed off," Drew panted.

Gretta crossed her arms. "Don't lie Drew. We all know you were having a flashback. _Dozed off -_ please. You were _screaming!"_

Sensei Lloyd looked at Ted. "Has this happened before?" he asked.

Ted helped Drew up onto the bed. "It used to happen all the time," he answered. "But he hasn't had a flashback in - how long has it been?"

"Three years," Drew reminded, wiping his brow and still shaking. Drew was dumbfounded. He couldn't believe that he'd had a PTSD attack. It had been so long since his last episode; he thought he had gotten over it.

"What caused it?" Mark asked. He could be a strict leader, but all leaders must have concern for their teammates.

"I stuck my head out the window, and it's a cold, breezy night."

"Are you gonna be okay if we leave now?"

"Yeah. Silence helps."

"Okay. You know where our rooms are." And one by one, they all filed out of the room.

Drew lied back on his bed. He was exhausted. Maybe he could get to sleep now...

* * *

 **A/N: Yup, I went there. Drew has PTSD. But about what? He'll have some more flashbacks later on, so the pieces will start coming together. But by now some of you have probably come to a conclusion by now, and I congratulate you if you have figured it out. That conclusion is this: Drew has been here before. But when? And why? I guess you'll just have to wait for chapters six and seven to find out! ; )**

 **Also, you may have noticed that Lloyd also has flashbacks, though they are less severe than Drew's. He doesn't have PTSD, but he is emotionally scarred, because let's face it, the writers of the canon show are making him extremely unrealistic by making him essentially invincible to any emotional problems. Seriously, I could make an entire list/rant of reasons why Lloyd should be messed up, but I've already pretty much summed all of that up in this chapter already, so I will stop myself before I make this A/N four pages long.**

 **I originally had a scene in here where Violet and Lloyd were chasing Lex, and it was really action-packed and exciting but it was making the chapter too long. I may post it as a separate piece, maybe as a oneshot, after Part 1 of this story is finished. I also have a new poll. Please vote on it!**

 **I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Please review!**


	5. Chapter 4: Five Spies

**Hello again! Early update cuz I'm gonna be busy on Sunday.**

 **So, in this chapter, we're going to see a little bit more of Drew's personality, find out what happens when someone makes Gretta mad, and at the end, we'll meet someone new... If you were starting to miss some of the fast-paced mysterious what's-gonna-happen-next scenes that we got in the Introduction and Chapter One, you're gonna LOVE the ending to this chapter. There is also part of a song by The Fold in here; I don't own it!**

Chapter 4

Five Spies

"Got anything yet?"

The five agents were eating an amazing breakfast in the vast dining hall. They had found an empty table in a secluded corner and were now gathered around Ted's laptop. The computer expert looked up to see Drew setting down his tray. "Nope," he murmured back. "Still waiting for orders from headquarters." Ted studied his friend. "You don't look so great. Still shaken up?"

"Yeah," Drew muttered. Ted nodded and didn't continue questioning. Suddenly there was a small ping from the laptop. The team crowded around the screen to read the message.

set up surveillance cameras remember you're spying on ninja be careful

agent i

Drew snorted. "Is Agent I a three-year-old? 'Cause he sure writes like one."

"Maybe 'i' stands for 'idiot,'" grinned Ted. The two sniggered.

"Heads up!" Gretta suddenly hissed. Ted quickly opened up a chess game on his laptop to hide the message as three older kids in black gis approached the table.

They were all big and muscular, but one of them made the other two look tiny. The three sat down opposite the team, and the biggest snatched one of Ted's egg rolls and popped it in his mouth. "Name's Xavier," he said after swallowing. "This is Avery, and that's Zach."

"Excuse me, but it's not polite to take someone else's food," Gretta chided.

Xavier turned toward her with raised eyebrows. "You're pretty bold to lecture the top dogs in this house," he said. Then he smirked. "I don't think I've met a girl who's both bold _and_ cute. What's your name?"

Gretta stood up, her eyes flashing threateningly. The voices of the students in the hall died down to whispers as all eyes turned toward the commotion. Ted watched helplessly as she picked up her chopsticks. There was nothing the team could do at this point. Xavier had crossed the line. Faster than lightning, Gretta fixed the chopsticks on a pressure point on his neck. "The name's Gretta," she snarled. "And _never_ call me _cute_."

"Gretta! Let him go!" A blast of green energy from down the hall hit Gretta, and she fell to the floor, unconscious. Sensei Lloyd had arrived. He bent down and felt Gretta's forehead. "I want everyone at this table in my office, now."

* * *

Drew tapped his foot to a song that was running through his head while he waited on a very hard, uncomfortable chair for his turn in the office. He'd forgotten what the song was called, and who the person who sang it was. He did know the lyrics, however.

 _Better odds await the faint of heart,_

 _I've got a new disaster to start,_

 _I'm gonna make my day._

 _Way too deep to cash out now,_

 _Upside-down and inside-out,_

 _I never knew it was not okay,_

 _It's a neverender..._

Drew couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, but he did like that song.

Suddenly Ted exited the office, shocking Drew out of his trance. "Tag: you're it," he mumbled, and sauntered off. Drew stood up, took a deep breath, and slid open the door.

Drew had expected to find a gloomy, dungeon-like setting for his lecture, but he was surprised when he walked in. There were three windows, all wide open to let in sunshine. A vase of flowers sat on a side table next to two picture frames. One showed a happy family of three in front of a house in a forest. The other showed a whole crowd of smiling faces in what looked like a ruined Ninjago City many, many years ago. Drew picked it up and, looking around to check that no one was there, studied it. The people in it looked like younger versions of the Ninja themselves.

"That picture was taken after the first defeat of the Overlord more than twenty years ago." Drew jumped. Sensei Lloyd had appeared out of nowhere. "And the other one was taken only ten years ago."

Drew quickly put down the photo. "I'm really sorry. I was just-"

"-curious. I know," Lloyd finished for him. He walked over, his walking stick thumping lightly on the floor. He picked up the one of the family in the woods, a nostalgic look in his eyes. "These were some of my happier days."

"That's you?" Drew asked, referring to the father in the photo.

"That's me. And there's Violet. She was only five. And that," he pointed to the laughing woman, "that is my wife, Heather. You wouldn't know her. She died seven years ago." His eyes looked distant for a moment. "Now," he finally said, "Your turn to tell me something." He gestured to two mats on the floor. Drew sat on one, and Lloyd on the other. "What happened during lunch?"

Drew sighed. "Gretta's always been like that," he said. "She was like that where we were before."

"The others have already told me that. They have all said that she is in no way a danger to the students. However, they all sounded a bit, how shall I put it, _edgy._ I want to know what you think about that. I can tell already that you aren't the same as they are." Lloyd stopped there, waiting for Drew's answer.

Drew thought long and hard. If he said anything, it might give them away. But if he said nothing, he'd lose the teacher's trust. He finally spoke slowly, with caution, because he was not very skilled in keeping things secret. "She _can_ be a danger, but only if she's left unchecked."

Immediately Drew realized he was cornered. Lloyd raised his thin eyebrows. "So she _is_ a threat? May I ask what she might do if left unchecked?" Drew kept his mouth shut. If he said one more word, he'd be in trouble.

* * *

Lloyd looked Drew straight in the eyes. Many years ago, his uncle had trained him how to look into people's hearts just by staring them in the eyes. It was a way for Lloyd to connect with others. It wasn't telepathy. It was more of an ability to pick up on the feelings of other people's souls, allowing one to potentially get to know someone even better than that person knows him or herself.

Now Lloyd used that tactic on Drew. And he was surprised at what he found behind the tough outer shell.

Fear.

Fear and confusion and suffering beyond what Drew should have experienced at his age. Fear of getting hurt. Fear of others getting hurt. Fear of actions of others. Fear of himself. He reminded Lloyd of another fifteen-year-old boy he had known twenty years ago.

Himself.

Reading others' feelings was not the same thing as reading others' minds, so Lloyd could not pinpoint the cause of these feelings without Drew directly telling him. That wasn't going to happen. So Lloyd tried something else.

"Do you enjoy poetry?" he asked. Drew had been looking down at the mat, but looked up the moment Lloyd said the word "poetry". Lloyd smiled. "I'll take that as a yes?"

"Sure. I like to write myself."

"Are you familiar with Sensei Yin's poem, _Silent Fear?"_

Drew immediately began to recite it:

 _"It binds my tongue with chains,_

 _It fills my heart with pains,_

 _It makes me lie,_

 _And though I've tried,_

 _This silent fear won't let me cry."_

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Lloyd asked once he had finished.

"One of my favorites." Drew answered.

"Do you know what I think?"

"What?"

"I think the poem was about someone who had a secret they were too afraid to tell. Perhaps they were threatened. Or maybe bribed. You could take it even more literally and suggest that perhaps the person was being actively forced to do such things."

"Actively forced?"

"Enchanted. Spellbound. Cursed. Possessed, even."

Drew was silent for a while. Finally he asked, "Did he get out of it?"

"I'm not sure. But I think I know how one _could_ get out of it."

"How?"

"By facing his fears and fighting the force that is controlling him."

"I don't think it's that easy."

"It's not. I should know. But it is a fight that can be won, although not without sacrifice."

They were both silent for a while. Finally, Drew spoke. "I think I get your point," he said quietly.

"Well, in that case, you may leave now, Drew." Lloyd announced, breaking the silence. The two stood up, and Lloyd began to walk back toward his desk.

"Sensei?"

Lloyd turned. That was the first time Drew had ever called him that. "Yes, Drew?"

"Say the person in the poem was afraid of doing what's right because someone else could get hurt. Is it still wrong to be dishonest if the life of another person is at stake?"

Lloyd stared at Drew. He had not expected that. Was that what was going on? Was the situation that dire? What could this boy possibly be going through? Was there really a life on the line? Lloyd decided to choose his words carefully. "That's a very good question, Drew. I'm not really quite sure I can give you a good answer. I suppose it depends on the weight of the situation." Lloyd paused to think. He would need to be very cautious with this. "Is the person in question being forced to do something illegal, or not?"

"Say it's illegal."

"Can the person tell the authorities, or would that make the situation worse?"

"Say it'll make it much worse."

"Then I suppose you will have to decide what's best, won't you?"

Drew's eyes widened as it dawned on him that he had given Lloyd too many clues. "Did you just-" he began, but Lloyd held up his hand.

"You are free to go," he said shortly, and Drew quickly left the office, sliding the door shut behind him.

* * *

As Drew left the office, a dark figure in the shadows silently looked on. When he was sure the boy was gone, the figure strode casually into an empty hallway. He slipped into the shadows once more before pressing his finger to his ear.

"Agent I here. You wouldn't _believe_ how easy this is," he whispered into the darkness.

Someone miles away on a certain island heard him. _"Enough with the cockiness, I. Progress by Nightprowler?"_

"Negative."

 _"Progress by you?"_

"Positive."

 _"Do they suspect anything?"_

"Negative."

 _"Is the email sent?"_

"Positive."

 _"...You're not a bad double agent, I. Your dad should give you a raise."_

"Carson, I was _born_ into this job. How could I be bad at it?"

* * *

 **HEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!**

 **Who was that? What is he doing here? Why was he contacting Agent Carson (Carson was Vladomir's assistant that we saw in the Introduction, if you've forgotten)? Will I stop asking these questions before I sound like the Jeremy Levine Essays?**

 **But in all seriousness, I know this has been going very slow and I seem to be losing that glorious suspenseful tone that I had at the beginning, but Part 1 is** _ **supposed**_ **to be like that. It's** _ **supposed**_ **to be the lighthearted adventurous beginning of the three parts before we wander into the mists of the mysterious Part 2 and then take the one-way trip into the dark abyss that is Part 3. Just take my word for it when I say that this chapter is ALL foreshadowing. *Cough* actively forced *cough* agent I *cough cough*. Ahem. Excuse me.**

 **The end of this chapter served as a sort of transition back into a faster pace. Next chapter will have more** _ **exciting**_ **things in it, like the team finally getting their ninja gis and we'll also see the team's first fighting lesson and how everyone reacts to it! We might also see another one of Drew's flashbacks... yes I am cruel to him but I have to do that because 1) pampering a character is a big no-no for writers and 2) it's so fun to weave hints into the story!**

 **Anyway, review, because I feel like it's a failure on my part for me to have over 250 views and only 3** _ **re**_ **views. I've limited myself to only eight chapters for each part and we're now halfway through the fic now soooo... I need opinions. Praise and constructive criticism is welcomed! Tell me what you'd like to see in this fic! Shout outs to those who review! I'm sorry to say that there have only been three reviews and two PM conversations, so the shout outs go to BlackNBlue39, who favorited and followed me,Trinity mistress of healing, who PM messaged, favorited, and followed me, Arima Lucari, who PM messaged me, and my reviewers, Princess Bunny, iluvninjagoTNSBFWgirl, and that guest reviewer who made my favorite comment so far:**

 **"This is so awesome I think I might die. Is it just me, or is Nightprowler gonna fail epically? Will the AU ninja take their place? I DUNNO! Update quicker than Cole eating cake!"**

 **Three words. Cole. Eating. Cake.**

 **Just for that, I am dubbing you the M.C. Cake reviewer. Because YOU ARE THE M.C. THE MIGHTY COLE! XD**

 **Cole: I HEARD THAT!**

 **Thank you all! Anyway, WE'RE OFFICIALLY HALFWAY THROUGH PART 1! GEEEEEEEEZ time flies!**


	6. Chapter 5: To Tell Or Not To Tell

**(A/N) Hey there!** **I think from now on I will be updating on Saturdays.**

 **Instead of the flashbacks we'll get to finally find out what Drew's secret is. Hope that compensates. ; ) We'll still see the gis, though! And we may see the first signs of love in the air... Enjoy!**

Chapter 5

To Tell Or Not To Tell

Gretta was in her new room, reviewing the task sheet for the mission, when Mark slid open the door and poked his head in.

"We're supposed to go to the equipment room," he informed her.

"Why?" she asked.

Mark shrugged. "I dunno. All I know is we have to meet in there ASAP."

Gretta put down the mission print-out and followed the team leader out of the room. They climbed to the fifth floor and slid open the third door on the left. Once inside, Gretta's eyes widened.

The equipment room was the weapons expert's dream. Weapons of every shape and size hung on the walls. Armor lined the racks and gis of every color sat on the shelves. The Elemental Power class teacher, Skylor, was standing in front of a large ornate golden door at the back of the room. Drew, Ted, and Lex had already arrived and were standing to her left. Gretta and Mark went to stand next to their teammates. After a moment, Skylor spoke.

"Mark, Gretta, Drew, Ted, and Lex," she began, "you stand before the door to one of the most sacred places in this monastery: The Element Room. This temple is where each of you will have your soul element determined in The Initiation."

"The Initiation?" Gretta asked. _Sounds like a pretentious name given to a kindergarten graduation ceremony to sound less boring,_ she thought cynically.

Seeming to ignore Gretta's snide tone, Skylor continued. "The Initiation is the test to determine the element that your soul calls to. It will also determine which element you will be associated with in your time as a student here. It also gives you your ninja gi. In this room, you will become an official ninja student at the Academy." She paused to look at the faces of each of the five newcomers, then opened the door. "If you will now follow me, please."

* * *

Never before had Ted seen such architectural beauty. The Element Room was a circular temple with a high domed ceiling decorated with paintings of warriors in battle. The walls and floor were made of white marble, and the twenty pillars around the room were made of black marble, and each had a unique symbol carved into it. At the opposite side of the door of the circular room was a raised platform with the same symbols as the ones on the pillars etched into it. Bowls of burning incense hung from the ceiling, and a thousand candles placed around the circumference of the room lit the temple with a dim glow.

Skylor led them into the center of the room and gestured to the platform. "There are a total of twenty elements. They are: Fire, Lightning, Earth, Ice, Energy, Water, Amber, Form, Smoke, Nature, Wind, Sound, Mind, Metal, Time, Gravity, Shadow, Poison, Light, and Aloe. Your soul only calls to one. We will go in order of your ages. Would the oldest among you please step onto the platform to be tested." Mark approached the spot with a confident stride. The moment he stepped onto it, the platform began to emit a powerful light and a soft humming noise filled the air. Alarmed, he looked all around the room, and a black symbol appeared above his head.

"Earth," Skylor said. "Go to your respective pillar, Mark." As she said this, one of the pillars shone, and the same symbol appeared on it. The team leader walked toward the pillar and stood before it. As he did, a cyclone of rocks surrounded him. When it died away, he was not wearing the same clothes he had on only moments ago. He was clothed in a black gi with gray armor on his shoulders. He wore a brown belt with a texture that resembled rocks, and on his chest was the same symbol that appeared on the column he stood by.

"Cooooooooool," Ted and Drew said simultaneously.

"Now the second oldest," Skylor ordered.

"Time to shine," Gretta sang as she stepped onto the platform. The light shone, the hum sounded, and a white symbol appeared above her.

"Ice," Skylor announced. Another pillar glowed, and when Gretta stood in front of it, a light blue tornado with white flurries surrounded her. When it dissipated, she was wearing what looked like one of the fancy outfits professional figure skaters wear to competitions: she wore a short white skirt that looked like it would flutter in a breeze, and her tight-fitting white top had an open back and was decorated with a glittering snowflake pattern. She wore white skates that went all the way up her calves, and white gloves that went up to her elbows. Gretta beamed and did a little twirl. Though she often acted like a tough girl, it was not unknown to her team that she did like to wear girly clothes sometimes.

Drew's turn was up, and when he went up to the platform, a scarlet symbol flashed. "Fire," said Skylor. Drew stepped over to the pillar that had his symbol on it, and he was surrounded by a red, fiery twister. After the flames went out, he was in a flaming red gi that had a flame pattern rising up from the belt and a symbol like the one that had determined his element was carved into a small pin on his chest. Like Mark, he too now sported shoulder armor, but Drew's was gold.

Before Skylor could even say "next", Ted, feeling left out, was already rushing to the pedestal. He wondered what he'd look like. Would he look just as awesome as his teammates? Or would his gi look stupid? Before he could ask himself another question, his symbol formed above him.

"Lightning," he heard Skylor say behind him. He rushed over to his pillar, the symbol on it shining a deep blue. As soon as he got close, he began to feel a tingle in his hands and feet. The tingle became a shocking sensation, but it didn't hurt. He felt his adrenaline rushing as he was surrounded by a blue storm of electricity. He felt like that time he was on sugar high from drinking ten cans of soda pop.

When the tornado vanished, he looked at himself and gave a whoop. He was wearing nearly all black, but he had a blue belt on, blue straps crossing down his chest and back, and the his mask that covered the lower half of his face was also blue. But what he was really excited about was-

"Ha! I've got more armor than you two!" Ted laughed at Drew and Mark. And it was true. Not only did he have silver shoulder armor, but it extended all the way down his arms, a "tough" look that seemed to make up for his lack of size. Drew crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at his friend.

"And last, but not least," Skylor turned to where Lex had been standing, but he was gone. Suddenly the humming sound that had accompanied the shining symbols came back, but it was as if some one had turned up the volume on it. They all turned to see Lex standing on the platform looking terrified. Strangely, this was not unlike something else Ted had seen before. The platform looked like it was a machine that was overheating from too much activity. Finally, the platform couldn't hold together anymore, and it split in two.

Lex fell to the ground, and Drew, being the protective older brother Lex never had, ran over and helped him up. Skylor was in shock."What was that?" she breathed.

Gretta, Mark, and Ted rushed to the broken platform to investigate. Mark bent down and traced the crack with his finger. "Holy crap," he whispered.

"What?" Ted asked.

"Look at the way the platform split."

Ted looked closely, then gasped. The platform had split in a shape that perfectly resembled the two halves of yin and yang.

Was there something different about Lex that the magic in the temple couldn't handle?

* * *

The next day, Drew woke up on the wrong side of the bed to an ear-splitting clanging out in the hallway.

"Evil doesn't sleep and neither should you! Get up! And make sure you all eat a good breakfast, because today is another big day! We've got training to do!" Sensei Lloyd's voice rang out in the hallway. Drew got out of bed groggily and opened the door to see the head teacher banging a small gong with a mallet to wake everyone up. Drew sighed and closed the door so he could change out of his pajamas. _Guess I'm a real ninja now,_ he thought as he pulled his gi on, trying to ignore the ringing in his ears. He went to his bathroom to brush his teeth, reflecting on yesterday's events.

After the platform broke, Skylor had gone into the back and pulled out an assortment of backup gis. They were the smallest she could find, but they were all slightly bigger than Lex's size. Lex had his head in the clouds again and didn't choose, so Drew picked out the smallest of the gis, a green one with little black stars on the front. Even though it was the smallest in stock, it was still a little baggy around the ankles and the arms were a bit too long. Lex seemed to like it though.

After that, they had chosen weapons. Gretta chose a bow and an assortment of different kinds of arrows. Mark wanted a small dagger for close combat. Ted, not being a very skilled fighter, was reluctant to choose something, but in the end he had settled for a pair of throwing stars. Drew outright refused for Lex to have anything, but couldn't help noticing a steel katana in the corner that he thought he himself he might look good with.

Drew tried to comb his hair down the way it was supposed to go, but he had been having a bit of trouble with his hair lately. It had started to stick out at odd angles and it took a great deal of effort to flatten it. After multiple tries to tame the wild beast, he just gave up. He was in a bad mood today and didn't care anyhow. He grabbed his katana and headed out.

He trudged down the stairs to the first floor and entered the dining hall. Without bothering to sit down, he grabbed a breakfast sandwich from the line and sauntered off in the direction of the dojo, eating his meal on the walk. Nothing woke him up better than a good warm up combat exercise.

He slid the door to the dojo open, and after making sure no one else was there, let himself in. He walked over to a punching bag and closed his eyes. He imagined he was standing in front of a Black Dragon agent. He drew back his fist, putting into it all his anger and hatred he was forced to keep bottled up. Then he threw it at the bag, taking it all out on a piece of training equipment so it didn't show up in a conversation or something. That would be disastrous. He continued this, making every punch and kick count for a loss.

 _That's for forcing me to hurt people._

 _That's for making me lie._

 _That's for what you did to Lex._

 _That's for robbing me of the life I could have led without you._

He was so engrossed in relieving his anger, he didn't notice someone intruding on him.

"Could you give the poor punching bag a break? What did he ever do to you?"

"AAAHHH!" Drew yelped in surprise. It was Violet. "What are you doing here?"

"I was just coming down here to practice before class."

Drew was taken aback. "You too?"

"Yeah. I like to warm up so I can get ahead of everyone else." She walked over to him, looking like she wanted to talk a bit more, but Drew was still too mad at her about their first encounter. Violet seemed to sense the tension, and bit her lip. "Look," she began, "I'm... sorry about the other day. I was having a bad day and when Lex hurt my dad, that was the last straw. I was a pretty big jerk that day, so... can we start over?"

Drew turned around to look at her. She was holding her hand out for him to shake, and she actually looked like she was being honest. After a bit of hesitation, he went ahead and shook it. They stood there awkwardly for a moment. "Hey, do you want to maybe practice together?" Violet suggested.

Once again, she had surprised Drew. After a moment, he answered, "Sure. Why not?"

They went to the center of the room and took fighting stances, each waiting to see if the other would make the first move. Finally, Violet charged at him, but he easily threw her off. She however, proved to be just as prepared by quickly bouncing back into a standing position, her feet never wobbling for a second. As they continued their duel, Drew had to admit that she was quite the fighter. They seemed to be pretty evenly matched in terms of skill.

 _Maybe I was wrong to judge her so soon,_ Drew thought.

They went on fighting for a while longer, but they soon became tired and they sat down on the floor to rest.

"You're pretty good," he panted.

"Thanks. You too," she responded, a little short of breath as well.

As they sat resting, for some reason, Drew couldn't stop staring at her eyes. They were very pretty. Her green irises sparkled like emeralds. When she caught him staring, he looked away quickly.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"Oh, come on. You were staring at me."

"Well... I was... looking at your eyes," he admitted sheepishly.

Her pale cheeks turned a light pink. "Oh. Yeah. They're the only thing I got from my dad. Everything else you see here is from my mom."

Drew and Violet just sat there staring at eachother in silence until the sound of a walking stick thumping against the floor startled them both. They turned in horror to see the last person they wanted to barge in on this scene.

"S-Sensei!"

"Dad!"

"I'm sorry. Was I interrupting something?" Sensei asked with a smirk. It was quite obvious that he had gotten the wrong idea.

"Dad, we weren't, I mean we're not-"

"It's okay. I can leave you two alone if you want," Sensei Lloyd teased.

"DAD!"

It looked like Violet was starting to get riled up, so Drew decided to leave this scene before it got messy. Besides, Drew was still trying to make sense of his and Sensei Lloyd's talk from earlier. He walked the halls in silence, contemplating his teacher's advice.

 _Then I suppose you will have to decide what's best, won't you?_ His teacher's words kept repeating themselves in Drew's head.

What was best?

Telling the truth but facing the possibility of someone close to him dying?

Or keeping the secret but continue to live this lie of a life forever?

 _Who am I kidding?_

Drew climbed the stairs to the dorm levels, his head spinning at the possible consequences of what he was about to do. Every footstep seemed to echo in the empty hallway. Time seemed to go by too quickly as he was suddenly in front of the door to Ted's room. He held his breath and knocked.

"Just a sec! I'll be down for the lesson in a minute!" Ted's voice came from inside. A few seconds later, the door opened. "Drew - woah, what happened to you? You look like you just got hit by a truck!"

"Ted, I need to talk to you."

"About what?"

"I know it's gonna sound absolutely bogus, but..." Drew paused for a moment. "We're not what we think we are."

Ted's eyebrow went up. "What?"

"Alright, I'll put it plain. Seven years ago we - the five of us agents - were all kidnapped and stripped of our pasts and identities. And I'm the only one who remembers everything."

* * *

 _Great. Just great._

 _"HE DID WHAT?!"_ Carson shouted over the earpiece. Agent I had to cup his hand over his ear with the little device in it in order to keep the noise from carrying in the hallway.

"You heard me, Carson. He spilled the beans. Right now he's probably already telling him all the details.

 _"Lady Luck has truly frowned on the agency this day!"_ the assistant fretted. _"I can already see it: the entire Black Dragon Agency in ashes, our dreams shattered..."_

Agent I rolled his eyes. He hadn't seen Carson in a long time, but just keeping in contact by communication devices was enough to tell Agent I that the old man had _not_ grown out of his over-dramatic manner.

"Carson, you're forgetting the rest of Operation: Exterminate."

Hundreds of miles away, Carson froze. The boy had not pronounced the mission's name in its code form. It appeared that the clever little boy had figured everything out on his own.

Operation: XT3RM1N8 was known only to Vladomir's inner circle as Operation: Exterminate.

 _"You're too smart, Agent I,"_ he growled.

"Why thank you. _You're_ too kind, Agent Carson." the double agent answered before hanging up.

 **(A/N) AND IT FINALLY MAKES SENSE. If you still don't get Operation: XT3RM1N8, just say it out loud as one word. Replace the numbers with English letters. Eventually you should end up with the word** _ **"exterminate".**_

 **About the new gis: as you could probably tell, I'm pretty bad at describing clothing, so just think of the original ninjas looking a lot like they did in the crystal reflection scene (imagine Cole just in the same style of clothing as the others were in their reflections). Lloyd is still in his dad's robes. You can imagine the new gis in this chapter like this: Mark's is Cole's Rebooted gi with the shoulder armor and hood from seasons 1 and 2. The same goes for Drew with Kai's Rebooted gi. Gretta is what I described her as: an Olympic figure skater. Ted has Jay's Ghost season gi with Jay's season 1 and 2 arm and shoulder armor, but it's on both of his arms instead of just his right arm, and he has the Rebooted mask. Lex has the original green ninja suit, except there are black stars instead of gold. And as you're probably already thinking, the splitting of the platform is plot relevant... :D Also, I replaced the element Speed with Time because that makes so much more sense because of the theory of general relativity. Look it up. It's really cool.**

 **Next chapter we will FINALLY find out what Drew's been keeping a secret all this time! Let me know what you think of Drew x Violet! Go easy on me, this is my first fic and I'm a complete novice at writing romance. I'll try to put more of it in the next book (if you like the suspenseful bits in this book, you will LOVE the second fic)!**

 **There are no new shout outs, so I guess we're done for now. If you review, follow, favorite, or PM message me, you'll get to see your name on my shout out lists! I also have a new poll, so vote please!**

 **Hoped you liked the chapter! And as always, please review! If I reach ten reviews, I'll give you all a double update!**


	7. Chapter 6: Hacking for Proof

**(A/N) Hey everyone!**

 **Today we finally learn the secret Drew has been hiding from everyone! I am so glad that we are now back to a faster pace. Hopefully it will stay at this pace. Also, there will be more villain scenes! I got good reviews on my introduction to Neverender, so I thought I might put some more of those in. : ) Be warned, we are drawing near to the climax, so the next few chapters are full of shockers.**

 **I also need ideas for my second book. Send me ideas, your OCs - anything helps!**

* * *

Chapter 6

Hacking for Proof

"Are you done yet?"

Drew was looking over Ted's shoulder as he typed codes into the computer in Ted's room. Ted rolled his eyes and turned the computer chair ninety degrees to look at him irritatedly. "Dude, be patient. Hacking into the most secure system in the world isn't easy." Ted swiveled the chair around and got back to work. They had begun their little "investigation" at three p.m. after Drew had explained himself nine times about the agents not being "real" agents and a ton of other nonsensical claims, and four hours later they were no closer to hacking into the Black Dragon network. Ted tried code after code after code, but nothing had worked. This was turning into a total waste of his time.

"Why don't you just bypass the entire thing and skip trying to log in without a password?" Drew suggested. "Isn't that what you did on our mission to steal the files from Borg Tower?"

"Yes, that is what I did, but if I did that here, the entire network would be under my direct control."

"Cool!"

" _Not_ cool! What that means is that if I hacked this network the same way I did with Ninjago City's network, it wouldn't be so discreet. Not only would I control the network itself, but everything _connected_ to the network would suddenly go haywire, too. _Everyone_ _would_ _know_ that someone was hacking the system."

"How could they know who was doing the hacking?"

"I'm the only one in the entire agency who could _do_ a thing like that."

"Oh. So, since that's not an option, what can you do?"

Ted racked his brain for a solution to this problem. There had to be some way to get into the system without every Black Dragon agent noticing. He knew close to a thousand different hacks, but as each one presented itself to him, there was always something wrong with it. Too obvious. Too signature. Too complex. Too time-consuming. Finally, he ran out of ideas.

"Drew," he said reluctantly, "I'm afraid you may be right. I can't think of any better - or less _insane_ \- way to do this." Ted took a deep breath, and began to enter the hack for complete network takeover.

* * *

Sirens blared in the Black Dragon Headquarters. All the lights in the entire building had turned red, and the giant screen at the front of the enormous room had gone black except for red words appearing on the screen line by line.

Error. Press any key to restart.

Restart failed. Scanning for source of problem.

No source found. Searching for cleaner.

Cleaner found. Shut down for cleaning?

"What the _devil_ is going on in here?!" Vladomir bellowed, racing into the mission control room with Agent Carson following close behind. The spacious room lined with desks and computers was usually filled with the sound of the tapping of keys on laptops and low murmurs about various aspects of missions was now in chaos: interns were racing around the room, employees were desperately trying to fix problems on their devices. The leader's eyes fell on the Head of Mission Control, Agent Dawson. "Dawson, what has happened here? Nothing in my office works! I can't even make a telephone call!" he yelled at the bespectacled man.

"Someone has hacked the system!" Dawson shouted, frantically pointing at the screen.

 _"What?!"_

"Our entire network is out of our control! Someone has hacked it! And our network is completely unique to the world, set up to be invincible by our greatest minds! We have the safest network in the world and it's just been _hacked,_ for Ninjago's sake! HACKED, I TELL YOU!"

Carson stomped his foot on the ground. "I told you this would happen, Vladomir! Team Nightprowler has turned against us! The only person capable of such a powerful hack is Agent Ted! Now what are we going to do?!"

Vladomir stared at the screen with the red words on it. Then he turned to Dawson. "Try to fight fire with fire. I need you to hack back into our system and see if you can regain control."

Dawson typed in a code on his computer. New words appeared on the screen.

HACK BLOCKED.

Vladomir cursed. He should have seen this coming. Now everything was ruined. They were losing.

* * *

"You're in!" Drew exclaimed, grinning. He slapped his friend on the back.

"Yeah. But now everyone knows!"

"Who cares? Lets see what we can find!"

Ted scrolled through the home page until he found a tab labeled "ARCHIVES". "That's what you're looking for," he said, clicking on it. It brought him to a page with a search bar and a button that read, "SEARCH ARCHIVES". Ted turned to Drew. "You'll need to take it from here," he said, getting up. Drew took the chair and swiveled toward the computer. His fingers hovered over the keys for a moment as if hesitating to do something that would change everything, then tapped in five names: Drew, Emma, Lex, Reed, Nick. Then he pressed search. Ted wasn't quite sure where Drew was going with this, so he just kept quiet.

The results popped up, and at the top of the list was a PDF file marked "agent files: Team Nightprowler." Drew clicked on it, then opened the downloads window and selected the newest file.

The file's contents were five profiles. Ted recognized Drew's and Lex's names, but he didn't recognize the others. "I don't get it," he told Drew. "Who are those other three people?"

"Well," Drew began, clicking on the one labeled "Reed." "Let's see if you recognize this one."

Ted gasped as the picture of the agent popped up with the profile. He suddenly felt light-headed. He did recognize the person in the photo.

It was a picture of himself.

Ted felt like something had come back to him, something he never knew had been taken away.

It was a name.

 _Reed._

 _That's my name._

He scrolled down, fueled by this discovery. He had to know more. He began to speed through the profile.

 _Agent Name: Ted, formerly Reed_

 _Age: 12_

 _Gender: male_

 _Specializes in: Technology and Mechanics_

 _Background: Taken from home at Sensei Lloyd's Academy at age 5. Brainwashed and altered personality and appearance. Trained to be active field agent. Currently technology expert on Team Nightprowler._

He moved on to the other files. The one marked "Emma" seemed to be Gretta's, and the one marked "Nick" looked like Mark's. Ted found a very interesting pattern. Although all five profiles described the basic information as they already knew it, his, Gretta's, and Mark's all contained in their backgrounds three common events: "taken from home at Sensei Lloyd's Academy", "brainwashed", and "altered personality and appearance". Drew's and Lex's backgrounds, on the other hand, were different. Theirs were filled with loss and suffering, more than Ted could even imagine.

He couldn't believe it. Everything he'd ever known was a lie. Including himself.

 _Who am I? Ted, or Reed?_

And then the answer broke free in his mind as if it had been there the whole time, imprisoned in the back of his mind.

 _My name is Reed._

"Hey, dude," Drew's voice behind him said.

"Huh?"

"You zoned out there. Are you okay?"

Reed sat staring at the screen with his real name on it. "Everything, all this time, has been a lie, and I never knew," he said in a quiet but firm tone. He swiveled around slowly to look at Drew. The fifteen-year-old had an expression of sorrow on his face. Reed had to ask him. "And you _knew?"_

Drew let out a long sigh before giving his answer. "Yes."

Reed's head was reeling. "Why didn't you tell us? We could have helped you!"

"Because there was nothing we could have done. Think about it, Reed. You're a logical person. If I had told you that we were all living a lie, that we were fighting on the wrong side, what would you have thought? You would have thought I was going crazy, and you wouldn't believe a word of it. To make matters worse, I was threatened."

"What?!"

"If I said anything to anyone about what really happened, the Agency would kill someone close to me. I'll admit it was a hard secret to keep. You know all those times I seemed to stop myself from saying something or refused to finish a sentence? I was about to say something that would result in the secret getting out."

Reed was shocked. He had no idea that something like this was happening to his best friend. "So what's gonna happen now that you've told me and everyone knows about it?"

Drew's amber eyes flashed. "We're gonna show 'em who we really are."

"And how are we supposed to do that when we've just done what they warned us not to do?"

"I have a plan, but we'll have to work fast. Are you up for pulling an all-nighter?"

* * *

The sirens continued to wail as Vladomir stood fuming. He thought he had Nightprowler under control. _Everyone_ thought he had Nightprowler under control. Until now. Now they were ruined. The agency would crumble under his command.

Then he remembered something Carson had told him earlier.

A smile returned to Vladomir's face.

 _It's time._

* * *

 **(A/N) Time for what? You'll just have to wait for the next chapter to find out! I also intentionally left out the stories of Drew and Lex. Those will come in later. ; )**

 **The new shout out goes to Melone-chan, who followed and favorited me! And thanks again to Trinitymistressofhealing (sorry, when I tried to put your name down with all the periods in between the words, it wouldn't show up when I downloaded it to Doc Manager), BlackNBlue39, Arima Lucari, Princess Bunny, iluvninjagoTNSBFWgirl, and the M.C. Cake Reviewer (yes, I am literally calling you that. I was not joking in chapter 4)!**

 **Anyway, about the new poll I put up. You have 13 choices and you can pick four. PLEASE vote because I am having a hard time deciding on a good plot. I will probably take a hiatus between Part 1 and Part 2 to plan and write chapters. As long as you stick with me, I will come back with Part 2! Feedback always helps! Reviews will keep me going!**


	8. Chapter 7: The Rebel's Secret

**(A/N) Hey guys! INFJwriter here! Sorry, I was busy on Saturday, so I'm updating a little bit late. I now present to you the flashback chapter. This is when everyone gets their memories back, as well as when they all change their allegiance! Now let's get this show on the road!**

Chapter 7

The Rebel's Secret

"How's it going?" Drew whispered.

Reed poked his head out from behind the project that he had been working on since they had hacked the Black Dragon's network. They had stayed up all night working on a machine that could reverse all damage done to their brains. "Still needs some finishing touches. Now I've got a question for you: do I have to use my own invention on myself?"

"Do you remember living here seven years ago?"

"No."

"Then you have your answer."

Reed sighed. He was about to ask for a socket wrench when he heard the sound of someone coming down the stairs. "Quick!" Drew hissed, and Reed threw a sheet over their machine and dove behind it just before Violet stepped in.

Reed peeped out from behind the sheet to watch. Violet blinked in surprise at Drew. "Wasn't expecting to see you. I thought maybe Ted might have slipped down here to tinker. What are you doing up so early?"

"Oh, you know me, just practicing for Spinjitsu class tomorrow," Drew bragged. Reed's eyebrows went up. This wasn't like Drew. He was never flirtatious. He shook his head in disbelief as he realized what was going on.

Drew had a crush on Violet.

Reed would have groaned, but he kept it in as it would have given them away.

"Uh huh. So then what's with the big thing under the sheet?" Violet asked, pointing out their project. Quite honestly, it was hard not to notice it. Reed and Drew weren't putting much effort into keeping it hidden. They hadn't thought anyone would come down while they were working.

For a split second, a spark of fear went off in Drew's amber eyes. The look quickly disappeared though, and he sighed. "Okay, okay, you got me. It's the robotics project Ted and I are working on for Sensei Zane's class. Right, Ted?"

Reed knew that was a cue for him to come out. He stood up behind the machine and gave a thumbs-up.

"Umm... you won't tell anyone, will you?" Drew asked Violet nervously.

"Nah. Besides, I don't even know what's under there. See you later, you two. Have fun staying awake for class," she added with a hint of sarcasm.

"Bye," the boys answered as she climbed back up the stairs again. Reed noticed that even after she was gone, Drew kept looking at where she had just been. Reed grinned. He decided to have some fun with this...

"So you got a girlfriend?" he teased.

"W-what!? She's not my girlfriend!"

"Mm hm. And I'm Santa Claus."

Drew huffed. "Just hurry up and finish that machine. We have to have this done by morning."

* * *

Lex kept working on his current task. Drew had given him a code last night to figure out. It was very complex, having multiple different translations. Lex liked challenges though, and it was worth staying up all night to receive the satisfaction of decoding yet another message. So far however, he hadn't figured out what type of code it was. It was composed of letters and numbers, but he couldn't quite figure out-

 _Wait a minute._

There was one sequence of letters and numbers that kept popping up in the message.

 _XT3RM1N8._

And then it clicked.

Lex began scrawling furiously on the wall. It was similar to one of those times when he suddenly saw a connection between his calculations. If his hypothesis was correct...

 _XT3RM1N8._

 _X=EX. 3=E. 1=I. 8=ATE._

 _EX-T-E-R-M-I-N-ATE._

 _EXTERMINATE._

When Lex finished, his heart dropped into his stomach . The crayon fell out of his hand and broke as it hit the floor while Lex stared at his work in shock. He swallowed hard and took a few steps backward, still staring wide-eyed at his solution written on the wall.

* * *

Two hours later, at 4 a.m., Reed popped his head into Mark's room. Mark and Gretta were huddled around Reed's computer speaking in hushed tones.

 _"Do you think that's all of it?"_

 _"Yes, that's everything."_

Reed cleared his throat. Mark slammed the laptop shut and turned around to look at the intruder with a look of one who had just been caught red-handed. "Ted, I'm surprised to see you up so early," he said, putting on a fake smile and trying to hide the computer from view. Gretta just glared at Reed with a look that could kill.

Reed narrowed his eyes at the team leader. "I could say the same thing about you. What are you doing on my computer?" he asked suspiciously.

"Sending a few emails," he answered. "You left it in here last night, so we figured we'd get a few jobs out of the way. We didn't think you'd mind."

"Well, I _do_ mind," Reed snapped. "And I'll have you know that that was one of the worst attempts at a lie that I've ever heard."

"What do you mean?" Mark asked trying to hide the nervousness in his voice, but Reed saw right through it.

Even though Reed hadn't had his memory restored yet, he'd noticed that ever since he'd read the files last night, he'd felt different. He'd been more aware of changes in people's stories, their habits, their flaws. He'd been thinking faster, clearer, and more thoroughly than he ever had before. It was almost like a computer upgrade; in one click, the entire system was better than it used to be. And this new system allowed him to pick apart every word Mark had just said.

"The last time I used my computer was in my room, looking something up with Drew," he began. "I left it on my desk. The only way you could have gotten your hands on it is if you and Gretta stole it. _Which_ means," Reed's voice rose momentarily to stop Mark, who looked like he was about to protest. "Which means you shouldn't be surprised to see me up, because I was already gone by the time you snuck in. That _also_ means that since everything else you had just told me was a lie, it is extremely likely that you were _not_ , in fact, just sending a few emails. So, now that I've officially shredded apart your alibi, why don't you tell me what you were _really_ doing on my computer?"

Mark stood up from the chair, his eyes flashing in anger. "What happened to you? Suddenly you're _bolder_ than before."

"To tell you the truth, I'm not quite sure. Something about an incident that happened seven years ago."

"You're not making sense."

"Actually, I'm making more sense than I ever have for quite a while."

"Don't get smart with me. You'll regret it."

Suddenly Gretta smiled. "Threats! This just got interesting," she remarked, amused. Reed ignored her. He watched Mark's face. He could almost see the gears in his head turning. And suddenly, it clicked.

 _"Drew,"_ he growled.

Reed smiled. "You finally put it together, huh?"

 _"You're both rogues!"_

"I guess you could say that."

Mark charged, and Gretta followed. Reed bolted; his work was done. They had taken the bait. Now he just needed to lead them into the garage.

* * *

Drew heard the pounding of feet coming down the stairs just as he finished concealing the machine behind some loose machine parts and boxes. He darted into the shadows just as the three arrived in the garage. Reed backed into the spot against the wall that Drew had showed him earlier. He made his best impression of being cornered as Gretta and Mark closed in on him.

"Game's over, Ted," Gretta sneered, setting her gun to stun mode. "You've gotten yourself into a heap of trouble. Say goodbye to your name being under Team Nightprowler."

"You can _all_ say goodbye to your names," Drew said suddenly, firing up the memory-restorer. Mark and Gretta turned around to see the giant machine humming to life, pointed straight at them. "Here comes your _wake-up_ call." They didn't even have the chance to react. The light from the beam hit them, blinding them before everything went black.

* * *

 _I remember it well. It was a cold, late autumn night. The sky was covered with clouds so that not one star shone. Even the moonlight was blotted out. The wind howled eerily outside the monastery._

 _My father was just putting me to bed. "Goodnight, Drew. Sleep well," he told me. Then someone screamed downstairs. Everyone, teachers and students, ran toward the cry. When we reached the front hall, we were terrified at the scene before us. The Black Dragons were invading._

 _The teachers told us kids to run and hide while they held the intruders back. We ran upstairs to the top floor, but we were cut off on the fourth floor by more Black Dragon agents._

 _They lined us up and inspected each and every one of us, looking from us to a tablet device and then back before moving on. Suddenly, an agent pulled out of the line one six-year-old student, Reed, and handed him over to another agent who led him toward a window and jumped out with him. A nine-year-old, Emma, Reed's sister, screamed and broke out of the line. An agent shot a tranquilizing dart at her. She fell to the floor. He looked at his screen, and handed her over to be taken away, too. After that, no one dared break out of line. They ended up also taking a ten-year-old, Nick, and finally, me._

 _We were led to a black airship outside the monastery. Before they could take us in, however, there was a yell, and Heather, Sensei Lloyd's wife, was suddenly there, fighting. Only a few seconds in, however, she suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed to the ground. The agents threw us and her into the back of the airship and took off. That was the last I saw of our home for years._

 _Before long we arrived at the ocean. The airship descended, transforming itself. When it hit the water, it was no longer an airship, but a submarine. We traveled through the water for a long while before we finally broke the surface. They took us out of the vehicle and onto the dock of an unfamiliar island. The night was even colder and darker there than at home. I was afraid._

 _They led us down a path through a dark, misty jungle until we came to a large building: the Black Dragon Headquarters. Inside, they separated us kids from Heather, and we were taken down a long hallway to a large laboratory full of giant machines. They lined us up, and one by one they put us through a memory-altering machine. First they took Reed, then Nick, then Emma, and finally me._

 _I was strapped to a chair. They adjusted the angle of the laser. When they pressed the button, I felt a sharp pain in my forehead, but it passed after only a few seconds. I was a bit dazed, but after a moment I realized that it hadn't worked; I remembered everything. The doctors figured that since I was a descendent of Amber, a very powerful element, the brainwash had been blocked. They threatened me, saying that if I told anyone what had happened, they would kill someone close to me._

 _My name is Drew. I am fifteen years old now. For seven years I have been forced to live a life of crime, lying about who I really am. Now the truth can finally be told. Now you finally know my secret._

* * *

She had a name.

What was it?

She searched her brain. To her surprise, it felt like she hadn't _used_ it for years. Her thought process was clumsy, and felt like a journey through a swamp on foot. And then, out of the cloudy void, it came to her.

 _Emma._

She also knew that she was looking for someone she had lost. Who was it?

 _Reed._

"Reed!" she shouted.

And to her astonishment and relief, a groggy answer came. "Calm down, sis, I'm right here!"

Emma opened her eyes and slowly sat up to see her little brother doing the same. They looked at eachother for a minute, then they were hugging and crying and nothing mattered anymore because they remembered eachother and they were back together after those evil people had separated them...

"I always love a happy ending!"

They looked up to see Drew hopping out from behind the memory-restorer, a huge grin on his face. "Honestly, I've been waiting for this day for seven years. I think this deserves a celebration."

"Celebration? Why would we celebrate after what we just did?"

Everyone turned to see their old team leader staring at the floor with an expression of - what was it? Anger? Guilt? Fear? A combination? It was hard to read.

"What do you mean, why would we-" Reed stopped as the agent known as Mark slowly stood up and turned toward his team. When he did so, it became clear that they were not looking at agent Mark. This person seemed more grown up and more militaristic than Mark ever had been. He looked at them with dark eyes that told them that he felt no relief at his memory's awakening. No, this person was not Mark. This person was Nick.

Nick's glare settled on Emma. "The email. The one we were working on when Reed interrupted us." Emma's expression turned from confusion, to realization, to horror.

"Nick, what have we done?!" she cried. She buried her face into her hands.

Reed looked bewildered. "I'm confused. What _have_ you done?"

Nick turned to his teammate. "Right before you walked in to see us on the computer, we had just sent an email containing a file with all of our surveillance, observations, pictures, voice recordings, everything we accumulated over the course of our stay."

Drew stood up, panic in his eyes. "Nick. Who did you send it to? _Who did you send the email to?!"_ he pressed.

"To the a-agency!" Emma bawled. There was silence as the statement sunk in. Emma could almost feel the energy and enthusiasm from finally awakening their memories drain from the room.

Drew took a deep breath. He was clearly trying to keep his frustration level down. "What are the consequences?" he asked in a low tone.

"We don't know," Nick responded gravely.

There was another silence until Reed suddenly stated, "Well, it looks like we're about to find out." He pointed at the stairs. Peeking from behind the railing was Lex, hugging his composition notebook and observing the scene with his wide, hazel eyes. As the youngest team member crossed the garage towards his troop, Reed began to explain.

"Last night, while Drew and I worked on the machine, we had given Lex the task of deciphering a coded message we'd found in the archives on the Black Dragon network regarding our mission. It had been sent from an agent to Vladomir, and the sequence XT3RM1N8 kept popping up in it. We wanted to know what it meant." Lex opened his notebook to a certain page and handed it to Drew, who then proceeded to read it to the group. It was a bit hard to do, since Lex wrote in all capital letters.

 _"'SIR,_

 _MY INTELLIGENCE HAS CONFIRMED THAT THE NINJA HAVE ORGANIZED THEMSELVES INTO AN EDUCATING FORCE WITH THE PURPOSE OF PASSING ON KNOWLEDGE TO A NEW GENERATION OF NINJA. NATURALLY, THIS SITUATION MUST BE DEALT WITH AS QUICKLY AND EFFICIENTLY AS POSSIBLE._

 _WE AT THE DEPARTMENT OF MISSION PLANNING HAVE THEREFORE WORKED OUR HARDEST TO CREATE A PLAN OF ACTION THAT WILL CREATE AS MUCH DAMAGE TO THE NINJA AS POSSIBLE. WE ARE PROPOSING OPERATION: XT3RM1N8, OR OPERATION: EXTERMINATE, WHICH INVOLVES AN UNDERCOVER MISSION TO INFILTERATE THE MONESTERY AND SEND BACK TO HEADQUARTERS ALL INFORMATION GATHERED THERE. THEN WE MUST USE THE THE INFORMATION TO FORM A PLAN TO DESTROY THE PLACE AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE, ALONG WITH ALL ITS RESIDENTS. AFTER THIS OBSTACLE HAS BEEN DISPOSED OF, THE PATH TO BLACK DRAGON TAKEOVER WILL BE SMOOTHE SAILING._

 _I TRUST YOU WILL BE ABLE TO FIND THE RIGHT AGENTS FOR THIS MOST CRUCIAL MOMENT IN OUR HISTORY._

 _SINCERELY,_

 _AGENT I'"_

When Drew finished, there was silence as the gravity of the situation sunk in.

"So that's what they were gonna do," said Reed quietly. "They're gonna kill us all."

There was another long silence until Nick suddenly said in that determined tone of voice that only the bravest of leaders seem to possess, "No they're not."

Everyone looked at him with sad eyes, believing he was once again following a cause before he thought it through. However, Nick's face didn't seem to suggest that. In fact, he looked like he knew exactly what he where this was going. He looked at his four teammates with that face he often gave them when they were slacking during missions. It was his game-plan face.

"Agents! Pull yourselves together!" He had turned back into the good old drill sargent he used to be. "Attention!" The team shot up and formed the old soldier line. Nick slowly paced back and forth in front of them, eyeing them with the disciplined and experienced stare he had acquired over the past seven years. "I know things seem pretty grim right now but I can guarantee you four that I will do everything in my power to make sure this does not happen and I expect ALL of you to do the same. CLEAR?!"

"YES SIR!"

"I know as well as you all that this plan has probably been in the making for longer than we would all like to imagine. Maybe this was why we were all taken in the first place: to carry out this very mission. But does it matter now?"

"NO SIR!"

"That's right! Because that's in the past and there's no use whining and crying like babies about it. What we need to worry about is the Black Dragons' plan to blow this place to smithereens! We all know that this is our fault so we have to be the ones to fix it! UNDERSTOOD?!"

"YES SIR!"

"We all have our different talents and I plan on using mine to help the right side in this fight! How about you all? Will you take a stand, or let the Black Dragons destroy this place?"

"TAKE A STAND!"

"Alright then! Let's do this thing!"

* * *

 **(A/N) Yay! The agents are good guys again! By the way, the chapter title, The Rebel's Secret, was actually going to be the name of this fic, back when I was planning a five book series, each one about one of the agents. Those were the days when I made too many goals for myself, thinking way too big! Back when the scale of my ideas scared me so much I couldn't even finish my books! Ah, how I don't miss those days!**

 **Also, from here on out, the personalities of Reed, Emma, and Nick are going to be** _ **very**_ **different, as you could probably already tell in this chapter. It's because when their memories were returned, so were their old personalities. I may need suggestions for mental and/or emotional problems due to their experiences. I'm thinking of exposing these problems as their weaknesses, which were not very well explored in Part 1. Send me ideas for their problems in the comments!**

 **Thanks to the person who voted on my poll! Keep the votes coming, people! New shoutouts go to woodswolf and garmadon jr! Also, thanks again to** **Trinitymistressofhealing, BlackNBlue39, Arima Lucari, Princess Bunny, iluvninjagoTNSBFWgirl, and the M.C. Cake Reviewer.**

 **See you next week!**


	9. Chapter 8: Seven Years Ago

**(A/N) Double update! Here it is. The final chapter before the conclusion. I can't tell you how hard this has been, waiting for this moment. I am so excited! Also, there is important information at the end so please read the A/N at the end of the chapter!**

* * *

Chapter 8

Seven Years Ago

"That's ridiculous," Jay scoffed.

The teachers were all gathered in the Element Room, discussing the events of the recent Initiation ceremony. Jay didn't see _any_ sense in what had happened. "A stone platform doesn't just _split_ under the weight of a kid that small! And the last time I saw him, Lex was _nowhere near needing an extra-large gi!"_

"Jay is correct," Zane added. "We gave him the smallest gi we had, and even then it was approximately 2.52 sizes too large for him. It is not physically possible for the weight of a child that small to break the platform's rock."

"I know what I saw," Skylor said firmly. "The platform split into the two halves of yin and yang. There was no mistaking it."

"But why would it do that?" Cole asked. "The platform is made out of an extremely strong rock. It only breaks under extreme pressure."

"So it obviously has something to do with whatever power Lex has." Nya concluded. "But I can't think of an element that can do that."

"Because there isn't one!" Kai shouted. "No element has the power to do that."

Lloyd coughed. "Energy can do that."

"Yeah, but Energy is a power exclusively passed on through the line of the First Spinjitzu Master! And you've only got one kid!"

"Dad?"

Lloyd turned toward the door. His daughter was peeking in. "Violet, sweetheart, what are you doing?! You're supposed to be in bed! It's four-thirty in the morning!"

"You might want to hear us out," she advised.

"Wait, what do you mean 'us'? Who's with you?"

Violet opened the doors all the way to reveal five people. All of the teachers stared. They recognized Drew and Lex, but the other three were complete strangers.

Until they noticed the uniforms.

The three strangers were wearing the _exact_ same clothes that had been acquired by Mark, Gretta, and Ted at their Initiation. But their physical appearances were _entirely different!_

Gretta used to have a dark-ish complexion, with short, dark brown hair, and black eyes. But the girl in front of them couldn't be more different. She was pale-skinned, with bright blue eyes that seemed to sparkle. Her mid-length blonde hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. Her face was less devious and more sincere.

The boy in Ted's gi also had blue eyes, but his hair was a dirty blonde instead of the brunette color Ted had. His freckles were gone from his pale face, and he wore a large grin.

The boy in the gi given to Mark had muddy brown hair instead of jet black. The eyes, once green, were now grey, and they had a brooding glare in them. His skin was a dark tan, a huge difference, considering the fact that Mark had a very rosy skin tone the last time they saw him.

The teachers were all giving them confused stares. "Drew, could you please tell me who these...friends of yours are?" Lloyd asked, looking at the strangers suspiciously.

"Sure. I'm assuming you all remember a certain event seven years ago?"

* * *

Violet watched as the confusion amongst the teachers turned into shock. Before they had come to tell the adults, Drew had told her the truth. At first, she had been dubious, but Drew eventually managed to convince her. Kai was the first to speak.

"How do you know about that?" he burst. Violet knew that her father and his friends, _especially_ Kai, had worked hard to put the kidnappings behind them. It would take irrefutable proof to sway the former fire wielder into believing what Drew had to say. She held her breath. This was when Drew would drop the bomb.

"Because... I'm your son," he announced.

The room became so silent at that moment that one could hear a pin drop. All eyes turned to Kai. At first, he was stunned. Then, his face contorted with anger. "My son is dead," Kai said through his teeth. "I learned to accept that a long time ago. Don't get my hopes up! It's only a coincidence you have the same name!"

Drew looked at Violet. After he had told her about his past, Violet had insisted that they prepare for this exact scenario, because she knew it was bound to happen. She had remarked that although it was not obvious at first, Drew had inherited his father's facial features. The reason it was not easy to notice was because of his hair. Drew's brick-red hair grew in all directions and was in no particular style. However, Violet had a hunch that she could fix that.

"Purple ninja to the rescue!" she said with a confident smile. She whipped out a comb and a bottle of hair gel she had swiped from Kai's bathroom. Skylor had once told her that he used way more gel than he actually needed to get his signature spikes, so he kept a huge stock of them under the sink. Drew had expressed his concerns that sneaking around and stealing something from a bathroom that belonged to someone that you were not related to was a bit creepy, but Violet answered by simply saying, "So?"

"Hey! Where'd you get that?!" Kai yelled, recognizing the bottle. Ignoring him, Violet dragged Drew out of the room. About a minute passed, and then she reappeared in the doorway, grinning. "Friends," she announced, "I present to you proof that Drew is _not_ lying." With that, she pulled Drew into view.

He looked a little pained, because it had taken a bit of work (e.g. hair pulling) for Violet to get Drew's hair in the right place, but as it turned out, it had all been worth it. Drew's hair was now spiked in almost the exact same way as Kai's was. Now the resemblance was unmistakable. Not only was it now much more obvious that Drew had his father's face, it was also easy to see Skylor's traits in him, too. He had his mother's brick red hair and bright amber eyes.

Skylor was the first to react. She ran at Drew and pulled him into a tight hug while weeping with joy. Kai was more cautious in his approach. He walked slowly toward his son, his boy whom he had been sure was dead and was never coming back to him. He looked carefully into Drew's eyes. It was as if he was looking at rings of amber melted by fire.

Fire and Amber. Kai's and Skylor's elements. There was no denying it now. This was really the Drew he had lost seven years ago.

"It's good to be back, Dad," he said with a smirk not unlike Kai's. The old ninja of Fire joined the hug, and the three were finally a family again.

"Don't you _ever_ leave us like that _again!"_ Skylor cried.

"Uh, Mom? I was kidnapped. I didn't leave you on purpose."

"Yeah, this is cute and all, but can we _please get to the more pressing matter here?"_ Reed suddenly blurted, ruining the moment.

"Right," Drew sighed, breaking out of the hug. "Get comfortable, everyone, because you're in for a long story."

* * *

"...And that's how we all got here."

After the agents finished filling the ninja in on the story of their kidnapping, it's aftermath, and the current danger, each putting in their bit of the tale, the former heroes of Ninjago were in a state of shock.

"So they're going to blow up this place..." Nya said quietly. "What now?"

"We get the hell outta here, that's what!" Nick answered in his usual uncensored language.

"Ninja don't just give up like that!" Jay argued.

"You don't know the Black Dragons like we do," Drew said in a tone that dripped with hatred for the organization he spoke of. "Hold back? That's for cowards. Go easy on your enemy? Wouldn't even dream of it. Retreat? Never heard of it."

"As a weapons expert, I constantly visited the weapons development complex on Black Dragon Island," Emma piped in. "Trust me when I say that they have weapons that are perfectly capable of blowing this place to smithereens in one shot."

"But we can't just quit!" Kai fumed.

"We're not quitting, Dad," Drew said. "We have to escape to someplace we can use to prepare ourselves for coming back. We just need time. Right now, the Black Dragons are planning a direct assault on this place. We're gonna be facing an army of tanks in another few hours!"

"Wait, how do you know it'll be a few hours?" Jay screeched.

"Long story short, Drew and I hacked into the Black Dragon's network, the whole agency knows about it, and now they're probably deciding to start the attack earlier than they originally planned," Reed told his fellow lightning wielder.

"Dad, what do you think?" Violet asked her father. Everyone turned to the green ninja.

"I certainly don't like the aspect of giving up," he said, "but if it means saving hundreds of lives, then I'm afraid we have no choice."

"But where would we go?" Nya asked fretfully.

"I'm running all possible hiding places through my database," Zane informed. "Since there is a 92% chance the Black Dragons will take over Ninjago, no matter what we try to do, that means the only place they won't be able to find us at is Chen's Island."

"Actually," Skylor mused, "that's not a bad idea at all. It could serve our purposes for an academy even better than this place does. It could easily be turned into a fully functioning ninja academy."

"Then it's settled," Lloyd announced. "We must all pack as much as we can and leave. No one can be left behind."

Unfortunately, the Ninja didn't notice the small listening device tucked away in the corner of the room...

* * *

 _"...We must all pack as much as we can and leave. No one can be left behind."_

In another room, Agent I listened intently to the conversation coming through his earpiece. He was impressed. Drew was much more unpredictable than he'd previously thought. Should he tell the Agency that the Ninja were escaping?

No, he decided. That would complicate - _certain_ \- desired outcomes. After all, rule number one of being a double agent was to never reveal everything to anyone - not even your closest allies.

Agent I smiled. _I'm going to win this little game..._ he thought.

* * *

That night, the lights were left on in the now abandoned academy. Everyone had already gotten onto Chen's old fleet of paddleboats. That is, everyone but five certain now-rogue agents.

Drew, Reed, Nick, Emma, and Lex had stayed behind to get some unfinished business over with. They watched from the edge of the forest as an army of weapons crawled across the meadow towards the monastery. They had fallen for it. The lights inside had fooled them into thinking there were still people inside. The tanks stopped.

"Sis! Now!" Reed hissed to Emma.

"No. Not yet," she whispered back.

"What are you waiting for?"

"The right moment."

There were mostly tanks in the incoming assault, but there were also some agents carrying an assortment of dangerous-looking explosives and guns. Reed spotted Vladomir's tank leading the charge.

"Do you think he's in there? What if he stayed behind?" Reed asked nervously.

"Vladomir wouldn't miss something like finally defeating your greatest enemy," Nick assured him. "He'd want to witness the destruction."

A general ordered to prepare to fire. There was a deafening silence, then a huge blast from one of the tanks as a missile flew across the field toward the place the agents once called home.

 _BOOM!_

The missile exploded upon impact with the building. Fire began to consume the place. There were cheers from the army of agents in the grassy field. Emma knew she needed to move now. Now they were vulnerable in their celebration.

"Alright, guys, it's time," she whispered. Drew took out a box of matches. Nick fished some vaseline and a cotton ball out of his pocket. Reed took out a pair of nightgoggles. Lex took out a notebook, flipped to a certain page, and copied some math equations and a carefully measured angle on a tree. Finally, Emma took out one of her arrows. She rubbed the cottonball in the vaseline and fixed it to the arrowhead. She put on the night goggles and lowered the arrow behind the bushes. Drew struck a match and ignited the cottonball in the shelter of the leaves, so that the flame would not be seen.

"This is it. You've got one shot, sis," Reed reminded his sibling.

"I know that! You don't have to tell me," she hissed. She took aim with her bow and arrow, careful to match the angle on the tree. She paused for a moment, then fired.

The arrow flew up into the sky, reached it's peak, then began its decent. Only when it was too close to avoid did the agents notice the projectile. There were a couple of people filling up the fuel tank of Vladomir's tank. When they saw the arrow coming straight for them, they jumped out of the way. The arrow plunged straight into its target: the gas tank. Almost immediately, the flammable gasoline inside exploded the tank. Team Nightprowler's mission was accomplished. The five rogues ran from their hiding spot before the Black Dragons could figure out where the arrow came from.

They ran for the docks, following the path laid out by Reed's GPS. "Kinda weird, isn't it?" the technology expert asked his friends.

"What's weird?" asked Drew.

"We just committed an act of revenge."

"Yeah?"

"We aren't supposed to do that as ninja."

"Well, then, let's make sure it'll be our last. We aren't agents anymore," Nick announced.

It took some time, but they finally reached the docks outside of the city. The fog covered them as they crept toward the ship that stood waiting for their arrival. The rest of Chen's fleet had already left, but Lloyd had arranged for his ship to wait for the former agents. The team boarded the boat before collapsing on the floor from exhaustion. As soon as they were all on board, they set sail.

When the agents had recovered, they found Sensei Lloyd below deck.

"You made it," he remarked with a smile.

"Yeah. We accomplished the goal," Drew panted, still a little short of breath.

"Drew, may I speak with you alone? I have some questions," the Sensei asked.

"Uh, sure," Drew agreed slightly surprised. What did he want to know now? He'd already revealed his secrets.

 _Except for one,_ a small voice inside of him said.

After Reed, Emma, Nick, and Lex had left, Lloyd sat down on the floor, and Drew followed suit.

"Drew," the teacher began, "I feel something is still bothering you. Have you told us everything?"

Drew sighed. "No," he admitted.

"Would you like to tell me?"

Drew took a deep breath, and began to recount what he hadn't told his teacher.

"The Black Dragons didn't kill Heather. Here's what really happened..."

* * *

 **(A/N) Aaaaaaand cliffhanger!**

 **Anyway, I said this would be important, so here it is:** _ **Neverender**_ **is going to have a rewrite. Why? Because I lost a huge majority of viewers (about 3/4) in the introduction, and I think I know why. It's because nowhere did I mention the Ninja, nor did I mention that we were even in Ninjago. So the rewrite is going to be the same fic, just with a bunch of tweaks. The sequel, therefore, will be on hold until the rewrite is finished.**

 **New shoutouts go to ninjagirl99204 and JudithArt! JudithArt, thank you so much for the suggestion about the contest, but it looks like I may have to drastically expand** _ **Neverender**_ **if I want to enter it into the contest. I will see if the rewrite will be long enough, but I'm not sure. Also, thanks again to woodswolf, GarmadonJr, Trinitymistressofhealing, BlackNBlue39, Arima Lucari, Princess Bunny, iluvninjagoTNSBFWgirl, and the M.C. Cake Reviewer.**

 **Review! And don't forget to vote on my poll!**


	10. Conclusion

**(A/N) This is it! The final update! Thank you to everyone who stayed with me until this point! Now read!**

Conclusion

The Neverender Ends

* * *

 _It didn't take too long for the scientists working on me to figure out that I still remembered my past._ _They threw me into a cell. I was in there for hours until finally they let me out, saying they had a job for me. They took me to a room on an upper floor: the room that they had put Heather in. They told me I was to take care of her, then they locked the door. When I asked Heather why I had to do this task, she replied that she was going to have a baby. I was scared, because I had no idea how to deal with this situation. But I was stuck with it._

 _I did what I could, but I was mostly in the dark because I was only an eight-year-old. It only got worse when Heather fell ill shortly before she was due. She was taken away to the medical sector, and I was all alone. A week later, she came back with a baby boy in her arms, but she looked weaker than ever. She was dying, I could tell. Days passed, and she got worse and worse. A week after she had returned, she asked me to come close. She told me she was going to die very soon, and that there was something I needed to know before that happened._

 _She told me that I had to take care of her son. That even though I was young, I was the only one who could do it. She told me to raise him in the way of the Ninja. To teach him right from wrong._

 _"And," she whispered, "make sure he meets his father one day."_

 _That was her last wish before she died with baby Lex in her arms._

 _I thought I could not fulfill it. How could I? I was a kid in a sinister agency that would never let me go anywhere they didn't tell me to go._ _But I kept the promise to raise him to be a good person. I couldn't let the Black Dragons teach him to be another one of them._

* * *

"As he grew older, it became apparent that he wasn't a normal child. On the upside, he was brilliant. On the downside, he was selectively mute. To this day, he still only talks to me."

Sensei Lloyd was silent. He was slowly coming to the shocking conclusion. If his wife, Heather, had been pregnant with Lex, then that meant...

"Lex is my _son?"_ Lloyd breathed.

"Haven't you noticed? Lex's blonde hair is starting to curl like yours. I was trying to brush his hair straight the other day and it just kept curling back up again."

"This also explains what happened to the platform," the teacher mused. "Only Energy can cause something like that to break." He paused for a moment. "May I... see him?"

Drew got up and left to find Lex. He found him doing exactly what Drew had predicted: writing math all over the walls. "Hey little buddy," he greeted.

"Hello, Drew." Lex would only talk to him when they were alone. The boy had a soft, smooth voice that radiated childhood innocence.

"Sensei wants to see you," Drew informed him.

Lex stiffened. His hand stopped writing. "Now?" he asked, his voice anxious. He hated social interaction. It was part of his selective mutism.

"I'll be there with you," Drew told him, hoping the boy would consent.

Lex dropped the marker and followed Drew out. When they arrived below deck, Lloyd looked at the young boy like he had never seen him before. Indeed, it was the first time he was seeing the kid knowing that he was looking at one of his own.

There was silence as father approached son for the first time. The teacher lowered himself to be at eye level with Lex.

"Now I remember," he said, trying to choke back tears, "Heather and I had agreed if Violet turned out to be a boy, we would name him Lex."

Surprising both Drew and Lloyd, the seven-year-old suddenly stepped forward and clung to his father in a long-awaited hug. Lloyd returned the gesture, unable to hold back the tears in his eyes.

 _Well, it looks like I've finally done what I promised to do!_ Drew thought happily. He was finally free. He decided to celebrate with the rest of the team. Knowing them, they probably already were. He climbed the stairs to the second floor of the boat. When he got to the top, his suspicions were confirmed. The former agents were partying with soda of all kind in every flavor.

"Drew! C'mon! Join the party!" Reed called to his friend, confirming his suspicions. Drew walked over with a smile and took the bottle of root beer Emma gave him.

"To rogue agents!" he toasted.

"To rogue agents!" the others echoed. They drank the sugary liquid, celebrating this one victory before they would have to return to the serious life. But this time, they would be living it because they wanted to, not because they had to.

 _It's good to be back home,_ Drew thought with a smile.

* * *

 **(A/N) And... scene.**

 **Wow. That's the first time I've been able to say that because I've never actually** _ **finished**_ **a good story in my life. I did finish one when I was in fourth grade, but 1) each chapter wasn't even a page long, 2) it was terrible writing, and 3) it was about Batman. It was so bad I threw it away.**

 **But don't worry. The agents will return! The second book, Nightprowlers Part 2: 21st Century Ninja, will follow! I will, however, need to take a hiatus so I can plan, write, and most importantly, do my rewrite.**

 **Speaking of future projects, I'm in desperate need for ideas for book 2. I would really like to get feedback. Send me ideas: OCs, events, advice, anything that could contribute to a good story. I only have a general idea of what might happen. Here are a few things that are going on in the story so far. It's a very rough outline, so I NEED ideas.**

 **1\. We see the canon characters more often**

 **2\. It takes place mostly on Chen's Island and begins one year after Neverender ends**

 **3\. We're going to see a LOT more of agent I**

 **4\. We'll get to know our five main characters as their true, unbrainwashed selves**

 **5\. More Drew x Violet**

 **6\. It's more of a mystery novel about figuring out who agent I is**

 **7\. The Black Dragons have taken over Ninjago in the Ninja's abscence**

 **I got good feedback about the Introduction, which was a villain scene, so I will be putting many more villain scenes in my books from now on. I really enjoy writing the villains.** _ **Especially Agent I.**_ **I** _ **love**_ **writing him ( by the way, that is an uppercase i, not a lowercase L. I see how it may be confusing so I thought I might clear that up now before we start seeing him in every chapter in book 2).**

 **Here are some things we** _ **might**_ **see:**

 **1\. Return of a** _ **certain**_ **tea**

 **2\. A scene with Reed and Emma interrogating someone (Read my profile and look at the descriptions of Ted and Gretta. It explains why it's them).**

 **3\. More OCs**

 **If anyone wants to submit OCs, say so in the reviews or PM messages. Tell me the name, personality, appearance, allegiance (good guy or bad guy, either is welcome), color, and element (if there isn't one, make one up). Also, tell me what you think of the story so far. Is it good? Great? Bad? Terrible? PLEASE give me feedback and ways to improve. I'm thinking that maybe I could be a bit more descriptive with my characters. What do you think?**

 **Review! It keeps me going!**

 **Until next time! INFJwriter signing off!**


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